In this guide, we’ll be showing you how to take screenshots in Manjaro Linux. There are a few different utilities we can use to accomplish this task, and this article will ensure that you’re familiar with them.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to take a screenshot with Manjaro’s screenshot utilities
- How to use Flameshot for screenshots and annotations
- How to use Kazam to take screenshots and screencasts
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Manjaro Linux |
| Software | Flameshot, Kazam |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Manjaro’s built-in screenshot utilities
When you download and install Manjaro, there are a lot of desktop environments to choose from. XFCE is listed as the top GUI, but KDE, GNOME, and others are also very popular choices. All these different desktop environments have a built-in screenshot utility, so regardless of which GUI you are using, you already have a screenshot tool installed by default.
They are all similar but function a little differently. For example, when you hit the PrtSc (print screen) key in XFCE, a little window pops up and gives you some options on what to do with the image you just captured:
In GNOME, hitting the PrtSc key will cause your screen to flash and you’ll hear a camera shutter sound, but nothing pops up. You can find your screenshot in the Pictures folder inside your home directory.
We can’t possibly cover every GUI here, but suffice it to say that the built-in utility can be triggered with the PrtSc key. By default, your entire desktop will be captured in the image. If you just want to capture a particular window, you can bring that window to the foreground and use Alt + PrtSc at the same time.
For more granular control, just open the screenshot utility from your GUI’s application laucher.
The built-in screenshot tool will typically allow you to select a region of the screen to capture and choose whether or not to capture the mouse pointer in the image. Some are more robust and may include additional options.
Flameshot
The default screenshot utilities that we covered above are a bit sparse in the way of features. Flameshot is an alternative program that you can use, especially if you’re looking to annotate your screenshots by drawing arrows on them and have access to other convenient features.
Flameshot is not installed by default, so open up a terminal and type the following command to install it:
$ sudo pacman -S flameshot
Once Flameshot is installed, you can access it in the applications launcher. Alternatively, you can launch it from the terminal with this command:
$ flameshot gui
When Flameshot opens, just follow the on-screen instructions. You can drag your mouse around and resize the window very easily in order to capture exactly what you want on your screen. You’ll see lots of tools that you can use to annotate or upload your screenshot.
But wait, there’s more! You can configure Flameshot’s interface and other options inside the configuration menu:
$ flameshot config
There are some command line options you can use with Flameshot as well. See the man page for a full list of what it can do.
$ man flameshot
Kazam
Kazam is another viable option for screenshots on Manjaro, but it’s not available in Manjaro’s official software repository (or at least not yet). You would have to first enable the AUR repository on Manjaro and install Kazam. Or you could just use git and makepkg to get it from AUR:
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/kazam.git $ cd kazam $ makepkg -si
Once it’s installed, you can open it in your GUI’s application launcer. A big selling point of Kazam is that it comes with the ability to record your screen. Just make sure “screencast” is selected when you want to record a video, and “screenshot” is selected when you want to take an image.
Conclusion
In this guide, we saw how to take screenshots in Manjaro. We learned how to use Manjaro’s default screenshot utilities to capture images, as well as install additional software to give us some extra options and convenience.
Using the tools in this guide, you’ll be able to capture screenshots, screencasts, and annotate and upload your content in multiple ways on Manjaro.
