KDE Documentation Screenshots Requirements

• Do only use PNG and JPEG (preferably PNG).
  Do not use GIF, there were previously legal problems with its use, and our toolchain is not set up to allow it. Even if GIF is not anymore under patent, PNG has still more advantages against GIF :
  • Millions of colors vs 256 colors.
  • 8-bits Alpha layer vs 1 transparent bit.
• To give our documentation a corporate look we have decided on ONE theme/style for all screenshots:
  Window decoration: Oxygen (but take screenshots without window decoration if possible)
  Widget style: Oxygen
  Colors: KDE Default
  Background: Flat color - Color must be white
• Create your screenshots in 72dpi mode.
  It's very important to keep the file size down for the screenshots.
  Running at 72dpi is vital to getting small screenshots.
  Start XFree86 4.x with the following command: startx -- -dpi 72
  You might want to keep a separate user set up, using these parameters, to make taking screenshots easy.
• If you have ImageMagick installed, you can get nice screenshots using it's "import" utility.
  In a konsole, type "import -depth 8 -dither <filename.png>" and press Enter. Add --frame if you need the window decorations included. Your cursor will change to a cross, click on the window you want to take a screenshot of, and it will be saved to
  There is also KSnapShot and is highly configurable, but you will need to reduce the color depth to 8bpp yourself, in gimp or some other image editor.
• Try to keep to or under 20 KB when saved as PNG.
  The current style and icons are highly shaded and use lots of colors, so if you really need to go over this size, do so.
• The screenshots should reside at the same directory level as the index.docbook file that uses them.
  Do not put them in a subdirectory.

The easiest way to achieve this (and to get default settings for applications) is to simply create a new user, select all defaults in kpersonalizer, set a plain white desktop colour and then never edit the settings. Then run X as that user when you want to take screenshots.

[ Edit ]