Ability to screenshots is an important element of an Operating System and more so for a blogger who has to explain visually-a few things. I have been planning to write about Shutter, a fabulous utility for taking screenshots, for sometime now. This post is also a result of the comment made by one of LinuxHub readers Vadim. Let’s see how to install Shutter on your Ubuntu machine. We’ll be installing it using the repositories so that Update Manager can update it as and when there’s an update.

About Shutter

Shutter is a feature-rich screenshot program. You can take a screenshot of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website – apply different effects to it, draw on it to highlight points, and then upload to an image hosting site, all within one window.

Features

• take a screenshot of your complete desktop, a rectangular area or capture a website
• take screenshot directly or with a specified delay time
• save the screenshots to a specified directory and name them in a convenient way
  (using special wild-cards)
• Shutter is fully integrated into the Gnome Desktop (TrayIcon etc.)
• generate thumbnails directly when you are taking a screenshot and set a size level in %
• Shutter session collection
  • keep track of all screenshots during session
  • copy screeners to clipboard
  • print screenshots
  • delete screenshots
  • rename your file
• upload your files directly to Image-Hosters (e.g. http://ubuntu-pics.de), retrieve all the needed links and share them with others
• edit your screenshots directly using the embedded drawing tool

Installation

I am going to install the beta version of shutter but be advised that it could be unstable and hence you might want to install the stable version.

1. Open Software Sources by going to System > Administration > Software Sources and click the tab that reads Third-Party softwares

2. Add the following lines (one by one) to your software sources by clicking Add button on the Third-Party softwares tab.

Shutter Beta

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter-testing-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter-testing-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

3. You’ll also need the Signing key: 1024R/1C89E4E1. You;;l have to import the authentication key. To do so, go to the Authentication tab in the Software Sources Window and click import. Locate the downloaded key to import it.

For the stable release of shutter just add the following repos to your software sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

The signing key for stable version of shutter can be downloaded from here.

4. Close the software sources window and you’ll be prompted to reload the repo’s. Click reload.

5. Click here to install Shutter. If you can’t install it by clicking the link, open a terminal window and type the following:

sudo apt-get install shutter

If all goes well you’ll have shutter installed on Ubuntu.

You can start shutter by going to Applications > Accessories > Shutter – Screenshot tool.

Shutter not only does make the job of taking screenshots easier but has a decently nice editor for you to edit the screenshots on the fly. You can also execute plugins to watermark or for that matter add effects like drop shadow etc.

Have fun taking great screenshots.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter-testing-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter-testing-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main