import(1)
NAME
import - capture some or all of an X server screen and
save the image to a file.
SYNOPSIS
import [ options ... ] [ file ]
DESCRIPTION
import reads an image from any visible window on an X
server and outputs it as an image file. You can capture a
single window, the entire screen, or any rectangular por-
tion 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 rectangle, just
release the button. The keyboard bell is rung once at the
beginning of the screen capture and twice when it com-
pletes.
EXAMPLES
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
OPTIONS
import options can appear on the command line or in your X
resources file (see X(1)). Options on the command line
supersede values specified in your X resources file.
-border
include image borders in the output image. -colors
value preferred 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, Transpar-
ent, XYZ, YCbCr, YIQ, YPbPr, YUV, or CMYK.
Color reduction, by default, takes place in the RGB
color space. Empirical evidence suggests that dis-
tances in color spaces such as YUV or YIQ corre-
spond 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.
-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. Optionally you can include the image
filename, type, width, height, or scene number by
embedding special format characters. Embed %f for
filename, %d for directory, %e for filename exten-
tion, %t for top of filename, %m for magick, %w for
width, %h for height, %s for scene number, %b for
file size, 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.
-compress type
the type of image compression: None, 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 specifica-
tion.
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 back-
ground color.
-delay seconds
pause before selecting target window.
This option is useful when you need time to ready
the target window before it is captured to a file.
-density <width>x<height>
vertical and horizontal resolution in pixels of the
image.
This option specifies an image density when decod-
ing a Postscript 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.
2 Restore to background color.
3 Restore to previous.
-dither
apply Floyd/Steinberg error diffusion to the image.
The basic strategy of dithering is to trade inten-
sity 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.
-frame include window manager frame.
-geometry <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y off-
set>{!}{<}{>}
the width and height of the image.
By default, the width and height are maximum val-
ues. 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 exclama-
tion 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 inter-
lacing scheme for raw image formats such as RGB or
YUV. No means do not interlace (RGBRGBRGBRGBRG-
BRGB...), 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 file-
name, type, width, height, or scene number in the
label by embedding special format characters.
Embed %f for filename, %d for directory, %e for
filename extention, %t for top of 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.
Specify the label font with -font.
-monochrome
transform image to black and white.
-negate
apply color inversion to image.
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 off-
set>{!}{<}{>}
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:
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.). Otherwise, -page
behaves much like -geometry (e.g. -page let-
ter+43+43>).
To position a GIF image, use -page {+-}<x off-
set>{+-}<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 cor-
ner of the page by {+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>.
The default is 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 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 fil-
ter-type (quality % 10). Compression quality val-
ues 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, otherwise 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 compression 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 spec-
ify -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
image scene number.
-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 win-
dow. 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.
-transparency 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 repre-
sentation of the source image with the fastest com-
putational 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.
-verbose
print detailed information about the image.
This information is printed: image scene number;
image name; image size; the image class (Direct-
Class 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 win-
dow.
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.ps. The default image format is
Postscript. To specify a particular 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 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.
ENVIRONMENT
display
To get the default host, display number, and
screen.
SEE ALSO
display(1) animate(1) montage(1) mogrify(1) con-
vert(1) combine(1) xtp(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1998 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any per-
son obtaining a copy of this software and associated docu-
mentation files ("ImageMagick"), 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 per-
mit 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 merchantability, fitness for a particular
purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall E. I. du
Pont de Nemours and Company be liable for any claim, dam-
ages 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 ImageMag-
ick.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the E. I.
du Pont de Nemours and Company shall not be used in adver-
tising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other
dealings in ImageMagick without prior written authoriza-
tion from the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.
AUTHORS
John Cristy, E.I. du Pont De Nemours and Company Incorpo-
rated