Screenshots are illustrations that show the state of a display the user may encounter. Screenshots can be either graphical or textual. However, screenshots use a great deal of space in a text document to convey relatively small amounts of information. The same space in the document can hold a greater amount of more descriptive and helpful information. Therefore, authors should avoid screenshots whenever possible in favor of descriptive text.
One of the isolated instances in which screenshots are useful is to demonstrate a physical screen layout that is unfamiliar to a reader. This does not mean that illustrations of dialog boxes are good uses of screenshots. On the contrary, dialogs are simply instances of a user interface element with which a reader is already familiar. An annotated diagram in certain cases, however, explains to the reader where to find functional landmarks on the screen such as menu bars.
The steps for taking a graphical screenshot illustrate how using text to describe a procedure is more concise than a series of screenshots.
Create a new user account to make screenshots. The new account uses the distribution default theme, fonts, and element sizes. The resulting screenshot has an appearance familiar to the largest number of readers, and makes Fedora Documentation Project documents consistent.
Before taking the screenshot, if possible, resize the targeted GUI element(s) to the smallest possible size. The target image should be 500 pixels wide or less. If the screenshot includes more than one GUI element, you may need to resize the screenshot in a following step.
To take the screenshot, select the GUI element with the mouse to bring it to the forefront, or otherwise arrange the elements. Press Alt+Print Screen to capture a single GUI window. For capturing the entire desktop use Print Screen. If the shot includes multiple elements grouped closely together, crop the resulting PNG format image in The GIMP.
If necessary, resize the image using The GIMP. Open the image, then right-click on it and choose → . With the chain symbol intact, set the New Width to 500 px, and click . Choose → to save changes to the image before converting it.
With the image open in The GIMP, right-click the image, and select → . Under , select , then click . Allow flattening of the image by clicking .
A Save as PostScript window appears. Select Encapsulated PostScript, and click .
Textual screen information is also useful for readers. Follow these guidelines for textual screenshots:
If a graphical screenshot illustrates a function, and the textual mode has identical functions, do not include both, unless omitting either would make your description unclear.
Make the information generic over specific, and omit any username and machine information if possible. Do not include the shell prompt unless it is vital to the demonstration.
Separate what the user types from sample command output.
When using screen
to demonstrate a procedure, use userinput tags to show what
the user types, and use computeroutput tags to show
the resulting output.
Example 3.2, “Correct Textual Screenshot (XML Source and HTML)” is an example of textual screenshot usage.
<example id="ex-text-screenshot-good">
<title>Correct Textual Screenshot</title>
<para>To find all the currently active ssh sessions,
execute the following command:</para>
<screen><userinput>ps ax | grep ssh</userinput></screen>
<para>Output appears similar to the following:</para>
<screen><computeroutput> 2564 ? S 0:23 /usr/sbin/sshd
3092 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients
8032 pts/0 S 0:00 ssh user@host.example.com
8032 pts/1 S 0:00 ssh root@backup.example.com</computeroutput></screen>
</example>
To find all the currently active ssh sessions, execute the following command:
ps ax | grep sshOutput appears similar to the following:
2564 ? S 0:23 /usr/sbin/sshd
3092 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients
8032 pts/0 S 0:00 ssh user@host.example.com
8032 pts/1 S 0:00 ssh root@backup.example.comExample 3.2. Correct Textual Screenshot (XML Source and HTML)