import(1)import(1)NAMEimport - capture some or all of an X server screen and save the image
to a file.
SYNOPSISimport [ options ... ] [ file ]
DESCRIPTIONimport reads an image from any visible window on an X server and out‐
puts it as an image file. You can capture a single window, the entire
screen, or any rectangular portion of the screen. Use display (see
display(1)) for redisplay, printing, editing, formatting, archiving,
image processing, etc. of the captured image.
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 rectan‐
gle, just release the button. The keyboard bell is rung once at the
beginning of the screen capture and twice when it completes.
EXAMPLES
To select an X window with the mouse and save it in the MIFF image for‐
mat 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
OPTIONSimport options can appear on the command line or in your X resources
file (see X(1)). Options on the command line supersede values speci‐
fied in your X resources file.
-adjoin
join images into a single multi-image file.
By default, all images of an image sequence are stored in the
same file. However, some formats (e.g. JPEG) do not support
more than one image and are saved to separate files. Use
+adjoin to force this behavior.
-border
include image borders in the output image.
-cache threshold
megabytes of memory available to the pixel cache.
Image pixels are stored in memory until 80 megabytes of memory
have been consumed. Subsequent pixel operations are cached on
disk. Operations to memory are significantly faster but if your
computer does not have a sufficient amount of free memory you
may want to adjust this threshold value. -colors value pre‐
ferred number of colors in the image.
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 have any duplicate or unused colors removed. Refer
to quantize(9) for more details.
Note, options -dither, -colorspace, and -treedepth affect the
color reduction algorithm.
-colorspace value
the type of colorspace: GRAY, OHTA, RGB, Transparent, XYZ,
YCbCr, YIQ, YPbPr, YUV, or CMYK.
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 pre‐
serves the matte channel of the image if it exists.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for this option to
take effect.
-comment string
annotate an image with a comment.
By default, each image is commented with its file name. Use
this option to assign a specific comment to the image. Option‐
ally you can include the image filename, type, width, height, or
other image attributes by embedding special format characters:
%b file size
%c comment
%d directory
%e filename extention
%f filename
%h height
%i input filename
%l label
%m magick
%n number of scenes
%o output filename
%p page number
%q quantum depth
%s scene number
%t top of filename
%u unique temporary filename
%w width
%x x resolution
%y y resolution
\n newline
\r carriage return
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.
-compress type
the type of image compression: None, BZip, Fax, Group4, JPEG,
LZW, RunlengthEncoded, or Zip.
Specify +compress to store the binary image in an uncompressed
format. The default is the compression type of the specified
image file.
-crop <width>x<height>{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>{%}
preferred size and location of the cropped image. See X(1) for
details about the geometry specification.
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%.
Omit the x and y offset to generate one or more subimages of a
uniform size.
Use cropping to crop a particular area of an image. Use -crop
0x0 to trim edges that are the background color. Add an x and y
offset to leave a portion of the trimmed edges with the image.
-delay <1/100ths of a second>x<seconds>
display the next image after pausing.
This option is useful for regulating the display of the sequence
of images. 1/100ths of a second must expire before the display
of the next image. The default is 6/100 of a second between
each frame of the image sequence. The second value is optional.
It specifies the number of seconds to pause before repeating
your animation sequence.
-density <width>x<height>
vertical and horizontal resolution in pixels of the image.
This option specifies an image density when decoding a Post‐
script or Portable Document page. The default is 72 pixels per
inch in the horizontal and vertical direction. This option is
used in concert with -page.
-descend
obtain image by descending window hierarchy.
-display host:display[.screen]
specifies the X server to contact; see X(1).
-dispose method
GIF disposal method.
Here are the valid methods:
0 No disposal specified.
1 Do not dispose between frames.
2 Overwrite frame with background color from header.
3 Overwrite with previous frame.
-dither
apply Floyd/Steinberg error diffusion to the image.
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 or -monochrome option is required for this option to
take effect.
Use +dither to render Postscript without text or graphic alias‐
ing.
-frame include window manager frame.
-geometry <width>x<height>{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>{%}{!}{<}{>}
the width and height of the image.
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.
-interlace type
the type of interlacing scheme: None, Line, Plane, or Partition.
The default is None.
This option is used to specify the type of interlacing scheme
for raw image formats such as RGB or YUV. No means do not
interlace (RGBRGBRGBRGBRGBRGB...), Line uses scanline interlac‐
ing (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 other image attributes by embedding special format
characters. See -comment for details.
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. Specify the label font
with -font.
-monochrome
transform image to black and white.
-negate
replace every pixel with its complementary color (white becomes
black, yellow becomes blue, etc.).
The red, green, and blue intensities of an image are negated.
Use +negate to only negate the grayscale pixels of the image.
-page <width>x<height>{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>{%}{!}{<}{>}
preferred size and location of an image canvas.
Use this option to specify the dimensions of the Postscript page
in dots per inch or a TEXT page in pixels. The choices for a
Postscript page are:
11x17 792 1224
Ledger 1224 792
Legal 612 1008
Letter 612 792
LetterSmall 612 792
ArchE 2592 3456
ArchD 1728 2592
ArchC 1296 1728
ArchB 864 1296
ArchA 648 864
A0 2380 3368
A1 1684 2380
A2 1190 1684
A3 842 1190
A4 595 842
A4Small 595 842
A5 421 595
A6 297 421
A7 210 297
A8 148 210
A9 105 148
A10 74 105
B0 2836 4008
B1 2004 2836
B2 1418 2004
B3 1002 1418
B4 709 1002
B5 501 709
C0 2600 3677
C1 1837 2600
C2 1298 1837
C3 918 1298
C4 649 918
C5 459 649
C6 323 459
Flsa 612 936
Flse 612 936
HalfLetter 396 612
For convenience you can specify the page size by media (e.g.
A4, Ledger, etc.). Otherwise, -page behaves much like -geometry
(e.g. -page letter+43+43>).
To position a GIF image, use -page {+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>
(e.g. -page +100+200).
For a Postscript page, the image is sized as in -geometry and
positioned relative to the lower left hand corner of the page by
{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>. Use -page 612x792>, for example,
to center the image within the page. If the image size exceeds
the Postscript page, it is reduced to fit the page.
The default page dimensions for a TEXT image is 612x792.
This option is used in concert with -density.
-pointsize value
pointsize of the Postscript, X11, or TrueType font.
-quality value
JPEG/MIFF/PNG compression level.
For the JPEG image format, quality is 0 (worst) to 100 (best).
The default quality is 75.
Quality for the MIFF and PNG image format sets the amount of
image compression (quality / 10) and filter-type (quality % 10).
Compression quality values range from 0 (worst) to 100 (best).
If filter-type is 4 or less, the specified filter-type is used
for all scanlines:
0: none
1: sub
2: up
3: average
4: Paeth
If filter-type is 5, adaptive filtering is used when quality is
greater than 50 and the image does not have a color map, other‐
wise no filtering is used.
If filter-type is 6 or more, adaptive filtering with minimum-
sum-of-absolute-values is used.
The default is quality is 75. Which means nearly the best com‐
pression with adaptive filtering.
For further information, see the PNG specification (RFC 2083),
<http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR>.
-rotate degrees{<}{>}
apply Paeth image rotation to the image.
Use > to rotate the image only if its width exceeds the height.
< rotates the image only if its width is less than the height.
For example, if you specify -90> and the image size is 480x640,
the image is not rotated by the specified angle. However, if
the image is 640x480, it is rotated by -90 degrees.
Empty triangles left over from rotating the image are filled
with the color defined as bordercolor (class borderColor).
-scene value
number of screen snapshots.
Use this option to grab more than one image from the X server
screen to create an animation sequence.
-screen
This option indicates that the GetImage request used to obtain
the image should be done on the root window, rather than
directly on the specified window. In this way, you can obtain
pieces of other windows that overlap the specified window, and
more importantly, you can capture menus or other popups that are
independent windows but appear over the specified window.
-silent
operate silently, i.e. don't ring any bells.
-transparent color
make this color transparent within the image.
-treedepth value
Normally, this integer value is zero or one. A zero or one
tells convert to choose a optimal tree depth for the color
reduction algorithm.
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.
-type type
set the image type: Bilevel, Grayscale, Palette, PaletteMatte,
TrueColor, TrueColorMatte, or ColorSeparation.
-verbose
print detailed information about the image.
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.
-window id
select window with this id or name.
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.
file specifies the image filename. If file is omitted, it defaults to
magick.miff. The default image format is MIFF. To specify a particu‐
lar image format, precede the filename with an image format name and a
colon (i.e. gif:image) or specify the image type as the filename suf‐
fix (i.e. image.jpg). See convert(1) for a list of valid image for‐
mats.
Specify file as - for standard output. If file has the extension .Z or
.gz, the file size is compressed using with compress or gzip respec‐
tively. 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.
ENVIRONMENT
display
To get the default host, display number, and screen.
SEE ALSOdisplay(1), animate(1), montage(1), mogrify(1), convert(1), combine(1),
xtp(1)COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2001 ImageMagick Studio, a non-profit organization dedi‐
cated to making software imaging solutions freely available.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files ("ImageMag‐
ick"), to deal in ImageMagick without restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of ImageMagick, and to permit persons to
whom the ImageMagick is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of ImageMagick.
The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express
or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of mer‐
chantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In
no event shall ImageMagick Studio be liable for any claim, damages or
other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise,
arising from, out of or in connection with ImageMagick or the use or
other dealings in ImageMagick.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the ImageMagick Studio
shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use
or other dealings in ImageMagick without prior written authorization
from the ImageMagick Studio.
AUTHORS
John Cristy, E.I. du Pont De Nemours and Company Incorporated
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 import(1)
