The target window can be specified by id, name, or may be selected by clicking the mouse in the desired window. If you press a button and then drag, a rectangle will form which expands and contracts as the mouse moves. To save the portion of the screen defined by the rectangle, just release the button. The keyboard bell is rung once at the beginning of the screen capture and twice when it completes.
To select an X window with the mouse and save it in the MIFF image format to a file titled window.miff, use:
import window.miff
To select an X window and save it in the Encapsulated Postscript format to include in another document, use:
import figure.eps
To capture the entire X server screen in the JPEG image format in a file titled root.jpeg, use:
import -window root root.jpeg
The actual number of colors in the image may be less than your request, but never more. Note, this is a color reduction option. Images with less unique colors than specified with this option will remain unchanged. Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
Note, options -dither, -colorspace, and -treedepth affect the color reduction algorithm.
Color reduction, by default, takes place in the RGB color space. Empirical evidence suggests that distances in color spaces such as YUV or YIQ correspond to perceptual color differences more closely than do distances in RGB space. These color spaces may give better results when color reducing an image. Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
The Transparent color space behaves uniquely in that it preserves the matte channel of the image if it exists.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for this option to take effect.
By default, each image is commented with its file name. Use this option to assign a specific comment to the image. Optionally you can include the image filename, type, width, height, or scene number by embedding special format characters. Embed %f for filename, %m for magick, %w for width, %h for height, %s for scene number, %b for file size in kilobytes, or \n for newline. For example,
-comment "%m:%f %wx%h"
produces an image comment of MIFF:bird.miff 512x480 for an image titled bird.miff and whose width is 512 and height is 480.
If the first character of string is @, the image comment is read from a file titled by the remaining characters in the string.
Specify +compress to store the binary image in an uncompressed format. The default is the compression type of the specified image file.
To specify a percentage width or height instead, append %. For example to crop the image by ten percent on all sides of the image, use -crop 10%.
Use cropping to crop a particular area of an image. Use -crop 0x0 to remove edges that are the background color.
This option is useful when you need time to ready the target window before it is captured to a file.
This option specifies an image density when decoding a Postscript or Portable Document page. The default is 72 pixels per inch in the horizontal and vertical direction.
This option reads each subwindow and its colormap of the chosen window. The final image is guaranteed to have the correct colors but obtaining the image is significantly slower.
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) Specification 89a of July 31, 1990 for details.
The basic strategy of dithering is to trade intensity resolution for spatial resolution by averaging the intensities of several neighboring pixels. Images which suffer from severe contouring when reducing colors can be improved with this option.
The -colors option is required for dithering to take effect.
By default, the width and height are maximum values. That is, the image is expanded or contracted to fit the width and height value while maintaining the aspect ratio of the image. Append an exclamation point to the geometry to force the image size to exactly the size you specify. For example, if you specify 640x480! the image width is set to 640 pixels and height to 480. If only one factor is specified, both the width and height assume the value.
To specify a percentage width or height instead, append %. The image size is multiplied by the width and height percentages to obtain the final image dimensions. To increase the size of an image, use a value greater than 100 (e.g. 125%). To decrease an image's size, use a percentage less than 100.
Use < to change the dimensions of the image only if its size exceeds the geometry specification. > resizes the image only if its dimensions is less than the geometry specification. For example, if you specify 640x480> and the image size is 512x512, the image size does not change. However, if the image is 1024x1024, it is resized to 640x480.
This option is used to specify the type of interlacing scheme for raw image formats such as RGB or YUV. None means do not interlace (RGBRGBRGBRGBRGBRGB...), Line uses scanline interlacing (RRR...GGG...BBB...RRR...GGG...BBB...), and Plane uses plane interlacing (RRRRRR...GGGGGG...BBBBBB...). Partition is like plane except the different planes are saved to individual files (e.g. image.R, image.G, and image.B).
Use Line, or Plane to create an interlaced GIF or progressive JPEG image. -label name assign a label to an image.
Use this option to assign a specific label to the image. Optionally you can include the image filename, type, width, height, or scene number in the label by embedding special format characters. Embed %f for filename, %m for magick, %w for width, %h for height, or %s for scene number, %b for file size in kilobytes, or \n for newline. For example, -label "%m:%f %wx%h"
produces an image label of MIFF:bird.miff 512x480 for an image titled bird.miff and whose width is 512 and height is 480.
If the first character of string is @, the image label is read from a file titled by the remaining characters in the string.
When converting to Postscript, use this option to specify a header string to print above the image.
The red, green, and blue intensities of an image are negated. Use +negate to only negate the grayscale pixels of the image.
Use this option to specify the dimensions of the Postscript page in pixels per inch or a TEXT page in pixels. The default for a Postscript page is to center the image on a letter page 612 by 792 pixels. The margins are 1/2" (i.e. 612x792+42+42). Other common sizes are:
Letter 612x 792 Tabloid 792x1224 Ledger 1224x 792 Legal 612x1008 Statement 396x 612 Executive 540x 720 A3 842x1190 A4 595x 842 A5 420x 595 B4 729x1032 B5 516x 729 Folio 612x 936 Quarto 610x 780 10x14 720x1008
For convenience you can specify the page size by media (e.g. A4, Ledger, etc.).
To place a Postscript image with a given size on a given location on a page, use -page +HOFFSET+VOFFSET -geometry WIDTHxHEIGHT (fill in numbers). Note: this is only for generating Postscript, not Encapsulated Postscript.
To position a GIF image, use -page +LEFT+TOP (e.g. -page +100+200).
The default page dimensions for a TEXT image is 612x792.
Quality is 0 (worst) to 100 (best). The default is 75.
Empty triangles left over from rotating the image are filled with the color defined as bordercolor (class borderColor). See X(1) for details.
An optimal depth generally allows the best representation of the source image with the fastest computational speed and the least amount of memory. However, the default depth is inappropriate for some images. To assure the best representation, try values between 2 and 8 for this parameter. Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
The -colors option is required for this option to take effect.
This information is printed: image scene number; image name; image size; the image class (DirectClass or PseudoClass); the total number of unique colors; and the number of seconds to read and write the image.
With this option you can specify the target window by id or name rather than using the mouse. Specify 'root' to select X's root window as the target window.
Options are processed in command line order. Any option you specify on the command line remains in effect until it is explicitly changed by specifying the option again with a different effect.
Change - to + in any option above to reverse its effect. For example +frame means do include window manager frame.
file specifies the image filename. By default, the image is written in the Postscript image format. To specify a particular image format, precede the filename with an image format name and a colon (i.e. ps:image) or specify the image type as the filename suffix (i.e. image.ps). See convert(1) for a list of valid image formats.
Specify file as - for standard output. If file has the extension .Z or .gz, the file size is compressed using with compress or gzip respectively. Precede the image file name | to pipe to a system command. If file already exists, you will be prompted as to whether it should be overwritten.
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