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I need to capture a drop-down menu of a program. If I open the menu and then press PrntScr (print screen button), it first closes the menu and then captures the screen. I tried Ctrl+PrntScr, Shift+PrntScr, Alt+PrntScr but no success. I am using Ubuntu 14.04.

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
41

Run the Screenshot program (gnome-screenshot, or search for Screenshot in the Dash). Set a timeout (or delay):

gnome-screenshot

And then get the menu and wait for the timeout to expire.

This only works with a whole-screen screenshot. So you'll have to manually crop later:

captured drop-down menu

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  • 5
    @TRiG gnome-screenshot -i, though you can set the delay directly (-d 5).
    – muru
    Jun 19, 2015 at 11:25
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    Thanks. And --help shows that, of course. If I had more sense, I'd've found it myself.
    – TRiG
    Jun 19, 2015 at 11:41
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    This doesn't work in Ubuntu 18.04.
    – carbocation
    Jan 7, 2019 at 4:13
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    In Ubuntu 20.04 the GUI seems to have been removed as well (or still), but as mentioned above, not a problem: Just run "gnome-screenshot -help" to see all options. Also as mentioned above "gnome-screenshot --delay=SECONDS" (or just -d) does the job.
    – Prof.Chaos
    Mar 10, 2021 at 4:00
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    @Prof.Chaos In 20.04 the GUI is still there. You can access it either via searching for "screenshot" in the dash or by running gnome-screenshot -i as suggested in muru's comment.
    – BeastOfCaerbannog
    Dec 21, 2021 at 8:59
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This is really simple using shutter and the best thing about using shutter is that you don't get to crop your menu later. It just captures the menu specified.

  1. Install and launch shutter

    sudo apt-get install shutter

  2. Using the shutter window, click on the 'menu' icon. See screenshot below:

    enter image description here

  3. You will then be prompted to choose and click on which menu you want captured. Let's take for example Firefox - my browser. See screenshot below:

    enter image description here

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  • Indeed, shutter should be the default.
    – muru
    Feb 13, 2015 at 7:22
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    I disagree. I just tried this and the real problem is that it grabs only the menu. I frequently need context. I think the first answer is better, but there should be an easier way to do a timeout on a selection of the screen.
    – tudor -Reinstate Monica-
    Aug 9, 2017 at 23:30
  • how hard is it to caputure a menu in a screen shot, wow
    – Bersan
    May 29, 2021 at 16:10
  • For me, shutter on Ubuntu Unity grabs the wrong rectangles.
    – PJ_Finnegan
    Oct 5, 2021 at 10:25
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Install the imagemagick package, then issue the following command on a terminal:

$ sleep 10; import -window root /tmp/screenshot.png

In the next 10 seconds change your active window, open the dropdown menu and wait. You will likely need to crop your screenshot afterwards.

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3

Use Flameshot, it also has an option to capture a rectangular area so you won't have to manually crop it.

Create a shortcut to these commands for easy access:

flameshot launcher

and

flameshot gui

enter image description here

Sample output:

enter image description here

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    This is the only answer that worked for me (Ubuntu 20.04, Flameshot 0.6.0). I do not see a Delay option in the GUI, but I can use flameshot gui -d 5000 from the command line to get a 5s delay.
    – benjifisher
    Feb 18, 2022 at 2:59
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  1. Open screencapture program using the "ubuntu button" then type "screen"
  2. There is a number field called "with a delay" add aproximately 4 seconds
  3. click on take screencapture
  4. open drop down menu
  5. wait until your screenshot is made
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0

I like flameshot too, but another useful program is peek, it lets you capture animated gifs.

Install with the command: sudo apt install peek

Place the Window over the area you want to capture, press record and do the normal actions you want to show. Pressing stop recording will show a prompt where to save the file. The output file size is minimal.

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