How to take a screen shot

There are times when we may find it useful to take a picture of what is on the screen. Sometimes, it is to capture an error message which has been displayed. Or, you may want to show off something you have done, such as a major feat in a game, or capturing some graphic from an application for including in some other document. Or perhaps, you are writing a set of instructions to show someone how to create an account and login to a special server/service. The process for doing this will depend on your operating system and desktop environment, but this How-To will at least get you started.

Windows

Since most folks are probably using some form of Windows for playing UT2004, I will start there. As normally installed, all the bits and pieces needed to save a snapshot of your screen into a file are all there. All you need to do is the following:

1. Take the snapshot. This is done by pressing the button labeled ``Print Screen'' (or ``PrtScrn?'' or some variant thereof). This puts a copy of the screen into the buffer used by cut/paste.
2. Startup a program which can receive a graphical paste. My favorite is Paint. To start it on XP, you will need to go ``Start->All Programs->Accessories'' and find/select it under there.
3. Once Paint has started, paste the snapshot into the drawing area. You can do this either by going to the ``Edit'' menu and selecting paste there, or by pressing ``CTRL-v'' (the control key and while holding it, the ``v'' key). You will see the paint canvas filled with the contents of your screen, and it will automatically be sized to hold the image. If you have extended your Windows desktop over onto a second display, then your image will have the contents of both displays side-by-side, just as you see them.
4. Save your image. You will likely want to go to the ``File'' menu, and select ``Save As...''. You will then be presented with a pop-up dialog box, where you will enter your filename, pick the directory in which to save the image, and select the format in which to save the image. I would recommend against using BMP format, as it is an uncompressed format which is very wasteful of disk space. Instead, I would recommend using either JPEG format or GIF format, as they are the most portable formats. Of the two, I would suggest JPEG, as it has the better compression algorithm.

UN*X/X11

If you are using the X Window System on some form of UN*X (Linux, NetBSD?, FreeBSD?, OpenBSD?, etc.), then there are a number of tools available to you for capturing a screenshot. I will have to assume that you at least know how to obtain software programs, and compile them if necessary. To that end, I will list a few programs here, and suggest that you take a look at either the graphics or x11 section of The NetBSD? Packages Collection, where you can often find pointers to the home pages for the various packages. There is also support for operating systems other than NetBSD?, and you less inclined to build your own may also be able to find pre-compiled binaries there for your use.

Packages which can be used to capture screenshots of your display include:

• xv - An oldie but a goodie. When you run xv and display the menu window, you will see a button labeled ``Grab''. Press this button, and you will have a dialog box where you will be able to enter a delay, select whether or not to hide the xv windows, and how you want to perform the grab (e.g. grab a window or a rectangular area). This dialog box is pretty much self-explanatory, and when the image is captured, it will be displayed as xv displays all other images. From there, you will be able to manipulate and save the image.
• xvidcap - Another nice program. Not only does it allow you to capture the entire screen (or a portion of it) through a GUI interface, but it also allows you to do so from the command line. What is more, you can capture a group of snapshots, and even have them encoded into a MPEG video. However, the frame rate you will be able to achieve will depend greatly upon the power of your hardware.

In addition to these stand-alone programs, it is quite possible that your desktop environment has added the means to perform the screen captures, perhaps by using one of the programs above, or using its own built-in functionality. Browse through your desktop menus and documentation for more information.

UT2004

If like me, you play UT2004, you should know by now that UT2004 binds the F9 key to take a screen shot which is saved in the UT2004/ScreenShots? directory,