The Spectacle HandbookCopyright © 1997-2000 Richard J. Moore
Copyright © 2000 Matthias Ettrich
Copyright © 2015 Boudhayan Gupta
Spectacle is a simple application for capturing desktop screenshots. It can capture images of the entire desktop, a single monitor, the currently active window, the window currently under the mouse, or a rectangular region of the screen. The images can then be printed, sent to other applications for manipulation, or quickly be saved as-is.
Table of Contents
IntroductionSpectacle is a simple application for capturing desktop screenshots. It can capture images of the entire desktop, a single monitor, the currently active window, the window currently under the mouse, or a rectangular region of the screen. The images can then be printed, sent to other applications for manipulation, or quickly be saved as-is.
Please report any problems or feature requests to the KDE Bug Tracking System.
Starting SpectacleSpectacle can be started in a variety of ways, as described below:
In the application launcher menu, Spectacle can be found at → →
Pressing the Print button on the keyboard will immediately launch Spectacle. Additionally, three more keyboard shortcuts are available to take screenshots and save them in your default save folder without showing the GUI:
Meta+Print will take a screenshot of the active window
Shift+Print will take a screenshot of your entire desktop, i.e. all monitors
Meta+Shift+Print will take a rectangular region screenshot
You can configure the default save location and filename by starting Spectacle normally and clicking on the button, then navigating to the Save section.
The mini command line KRunner (invoked with Alt+F2) may also be used to start Spectacle.
Spectacle can be started from the command-line. Spectacle has an extensive set of command-line options, including a background mode which can be used to script the capture of screenshots without showing the GUI or requiring user interaction.
To start Spectacle from the command prompt, type in:
%spectacle &To view the full list of command-line options and their explanation, type in:
%spectacle --help
Using SpectacleOnce Spectacle starts, you will see a window like the following:
Spectacle grabs an image of your entire desktop immediately after it is started, but before it displays itself on screen. This allows you to quickly create full-desktop screenshot images.
The snapshot taken by Spectacle is displayed in the preview window, which is located on the left-hand side of the Spectacle application window.
The image can be saved to a location of your choice by clicking on the button or typing Ctrl+Shift+S. This opens the standard save dialog, where you can choose the filename, the folder location, and the format that your screenshot will be saved in. You may edit the filename to anything you wish, including the name of a previously saved screenshot.
To save a screenshot to the default location, click on the arrow portion of the button and press the (Ctrl+S) button. The new save mode will be remembered for next time. The default save location and filename can be configured, as described later.
To quickly save the image and quit Spectacle, click on the checkbox beside Quit after Save or Copy, then click the arrow portion of the button and press the (Ctrl+S) item. This saves the image as a PNG file in your default Pictures folder, and exits the application immediately. As above, this new save mode will be remembered.
When you open spectacle, it immediately takes a screenshot of the whole screen as a convenience and shows a preview of it in the main window. You can save this screenshot using the buttons on the bottom of the window, or take a new one using the controls to the right of the preview.
To discard the current screenshot and take another screenshot, press the (Ctrl+N) button.
You may configure certain options on the right hand side of the application window before taking a new screenshot. These options allow you to select the area of the screen that is to be captured, set a delay before capturing the image, and configure whether the mouse cursor and/or the window decorations should be captured along with the screenshot.
The capture mode settings allow you to set the area of the screen that should be captured, and whether there should be a delay between pressing the (Ctrl+N) button and taking the screenshot. You may also enable the On Click checkbox, which disables the delay function and only takes the screenshot after you click anywhere on the screen after clicking the (Ctrl+N) button.
The Area combo-box allows you to set the area of the screen that should be captured. There are five options to select from, as described below.
The Full Screen (All Monitors) option takes a screenshot of your entire desktop, spread across all the outputs, including all the monitors, projectors etc.
The Current Screen option takes a screenshot of the output that currently contains the mouse pointer.
The Active Window option takes a screenshot of the window that currently has focus. It is advisable to use a delay with this mode, to give you time to select and activate a window before the screenshot is taken.
The Window Under Cursor option takes a screenshot of the window that is under the mouse cursor. If the cursor is on top of a popup menu, Spectacle tries to take a screenshot of the menu as well as its parent window.
While this works most of the time, in certain cases it may fail to obtain information about the parent window. In this case, Spectacle falls back to old way of capturing the image automatically, and captures an image of only the popup menu. You can also force the old way of capturing the image by checking the Capture the current pop-up only checkbox under Options
The Rectangular Region option allows you to select a rectangular region of your desktop with your mouse. This region may be spread across different outputs.
This mode does not immediately take a screenshot but allows you to draw a rectangle on your screen, which can be moved and resized as needed. Once the desired selection rectangle has been drawn, double-clicking anywhere on the screen, or pressing the Enter button on the keyboard will capture the screenshot.
The Delay spin-box allows you to set the delay between pressing the (Ctrl+N) button and taking the screenshot. This delay can be set in increments of 1 seconds using the spinbox buttons or the keyboard.
Enabling the On Click checkbox overrides the delay. When this checkbox is enabled, pressing the (Ctrl+N) button hides the Spectacle window and changes the mouse cursor to a crosshair. The screenshot is captured when the mouse is left-clicked, or aborted if any other mouse buttons are clicked. Note that you cannot interact with the desktop using the mouse while the cursor is a crosshair, but you can use the keyboard.
The Options settings allow you to select whether the mouse cursor should be included in the screenshots, and whether to capture window decorations along with the image of a single application window. In Window Under Cursor mode, it also allows you to select if Spectacle shall only capture the image of the current popup menu under the cursor, or also include the parent window. Finally, Quit after Save or Copy will quit Spectacle after any save or copy operations.
Enabling the Include mouse pointer checkbox includes an image of the mouse pointer in the screenshot.
The Include window titlebar and borders option is only enabled when either the Active Window mode or the Window Under Cursor mode is selected in the Area combo-box. Checking this option includes the window borders and decoration in the screenshot, while unchecking it gives an image of only the window contents.
The Capture the current pop-up only option is only enabled when the Window Under Cursor mode is selected in the Area combo-box. Checking this option captures only the popup menu under the cursor, without its parent window.
The Quit after Save or Copy option will quit Spectacle after any saving or copying operations. Note that a copied screenshot will only be retained if you are running a clipboard manager that accepts images. KDE Klipper can be configured in this manner by right-clicking on its icon, selecting Configure Clipboard..., and unchecking Ignore images.
Additional FunctionalityThere are some buttons located at the bottom of the Spectacle window. Their functions are described below:
Gives you the common menu items described in the Help Menu of the KDE Fundamentals.
Gives you access to Spectacle's Configure window where you can change the capture settings and default save location and filename.
Opens a drop-down menu which offers various tools:
will highlight the last saved screenshot in the default file manager
Access to the dialog
A range of external programs for Screen Recording
Opens a drop-down menu that will allow you to directly open the screenshot with all programs that are associated with the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) MIME type. Depending on what programs are installed, you will be able to open and edit the snapshot in your graphics applications or viewers.
Furthermore, if you have the KIPI Plugins installed, you will be able to email your screenshots and export them directly to some social networks and websites.
Copies the current screenshot to the clipboard. You can also use the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut for this.
Saves the screenshot as a PNG image in your default Pictures folder and immediately exits the application.
ConfigureUse the button to open the configuration dialog.
- Copy save location to clipboard
When a screenshot is saved, copy the location at which the file was saved to the clipboard. You can then paste it anywhere that accepts text input. Note that you must be running a clipboard manager in order to keep the path in the clipboard after Spectacle quits.
- Use light background
Use a light background color to mask the cropped-out area in the rectangular region selector. This may make dark cursors easier to see.
- Remember selected area
By default, Spectacle does not show an initial selection when you take a screenshot of a rectangular region. Enable this option to remember the last selected region of the screen, and set it as the initial selection when you use the rectangular region selector the next time.
When you use the Save function, Spectacle saves the image with a default filename, in your Pictures folder (which is inside your home folder). The default filename includes the date and time when the image was taken.
The Save page allows you to set the default save location and filename. Clicking this option brings up a dialog box like the following:
- Default Save Location
In the Location text box set the folder where you'd like to save your screenshots when you press .
- Default Save Filename
Set a default filename for saved screenshots.
You can use the following placeholders in the filename, which will be replaced with actual text when the file is saved:
%Y: Year (4 digit)%y: Year (2 digit)%M: Month%D: Day%H: Hour%m: Minute%S: Second%T: Window title
If a file with this name already exists, a serial number will be appended to the filename. For example, if the filename is
Screenshot, andScreenshot.pngalready exists, the image will be saved asScreenshot-1.png.Typing an extension into the filename will automatically set the image format correctly and remove the extension from the filename field.
Drag and DropA captured image can be dragged to another application or document. If the application is able to handle images, a copy of the full image is inserted there.
If you drag a screenshot into a file manager window, a dialog pops up where you can edit the filename and select the image format and the file will be inserted into the actual folder.
If you drag the screenshot to a text box, the path to the temporary saved file is inserted. This is useful for example to upload a screenshot through web forms or to attach screenshots into bug reports on the KDE bugtracker.
This works with all clients that do not pick up the image data, but only look for a URL in the dragged mimedata.
Credits and LicenseProgram copyright (c) 2015 Boudhayan Gupta (bgupta AT kde.org).
Portions of the code are based directly on code from the KSnapshot project. Copyright (c) 1997-2011 The KSnapshot Developers. Detailed copyright assignment notices are available in the headers in the source code.
Portions of the code are based directly on code from the KWin project. Copyright (c) 2008, 2013 The KWin Developers. Detailed copyright assignment notices are available in the headers in the source code.
Documentation based on the original KSnapshot documentation:
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 Richard J. Moore
(rich AT kde.org)Copyright (c) 2000 Matthias Ettrich
(ettrich AT kde.org)
This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.