{"id":51130,"date":"2026-05-06T11:33:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=51130"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:33:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:33:53","slug":"screenshot-annotation-ocr-ubuntu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2026\/05\/screenshot-annotation-ocr-ubuntu\/","title":{"rendered":"Enhance Built-in Screenshot Tool with Annotation &#038; OCR in Ubuntu 26.04"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-44710\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/gnome-logo-dark-250x250.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/gnome-logo-dark-250x250.webp 250w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/gnome-logo-dark-300x300.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/gnome-logo-dark-600x600.webp 600w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/gnome-logo-dark-768x768.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/gnome-logo-dark.webp 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This tutorial shows how to enhance the default GNOME&#8217;s built-in screenshot tool with on-screen editing (annotation), OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and other basic features in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.<\/p>\n<p>GNOME, the default Ubuntu desktop, introduced built-in screenshot\/screencast tool since version 42. It&#8217;s great but lacks features such as changing saving directory and image file format.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_51131\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-51131\" class=\"size-large wp-image-51131\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota-700x394.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota-700x394.webp 700w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota-300x169.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota-768x432.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota-1536x864.webp 1536w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota-1320x743.webp 1320w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gnome-screenshotannota.webp 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-51131\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gnome&#8217;s built-in screenshot tool with annotation support<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Thankfully, Alexander Vanhee, a member of <a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.gnome.org\/membership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GNOME Foundation<\/a>, make an extension few months ago that enhances the built-in screenshot tool with long requested features before GNOME supports them officially.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/AlexanderVanhee\/gradia-capture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gradia Capture<\/a>, an extension that adds <b>on-screen annotating support<\/b> when you trying to capture a selection of screen area. As you see in the screenshot above, the annotation supports free-hand tool, rectangle, text, highlighter, arrow, and number stamp tools with different colors, undo, reset support.<\/p>\n<p>Besides annotation support, it also allows you to <b>change the file format between PNG, WebP, and AVIF<\/b>, configure whether to capture parent windows when a transient window (e.g., Nautilus context menu) is selected, play sound or not.<\/p>\n<p>And, it adds keyboard shortcuts support for actions, such as switch selection mode,\u00a0 copy to clipboard, and toggle pointer visibility, as well as annotation tools, and system keybindings.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-51132\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/annotation-prefs.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"690\" height=\"626\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/annotation-prefs.webp 690w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/annotation-prefs-300x272.webp 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As you see in the screenshot, after installed the popular Gradia annotator tool, it can also <b>extract text from your selected screen area<\/b> using the installed OCR models.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-51133\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr-700x290.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"253\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr-700x290.webp 700w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr-300x124.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr-768x318.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr-1536x636.webp 1536w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr-1320x546.webp 1320w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/screenshot-ocr.webp 1575w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Other features include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Save to custom location<\/b> (Ctrl+S to open save as dialog).<\/li>\n<li>Support &#8220;<b>disable initial selection<\/b>&#8221; when you trigger the screenshot tool.<\/li>\n<li>Button to <b>open screenshot in Gradia<\/b> for further editing support.<\/li>\n<li>Button to <b>open screenshot folder<\/b>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a new project, it will probably add more new features, such as <i>blur tool<\/i> to hide sensitive data. And, you can request features by going to the <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/AlexanderVanhee\/gradia-capture\/pulls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">project page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Install Gradia Capture to Enhance the GNOME Screenshot Tool<\/h3>\n<p>The extension so far supports <b>GNOME 49 and 50<\/b>. Meaning that you can install it in Ubuntu 26.04 and 25.10, Fedora 43\/44 Workstation, and Arch etc distributions. And, someone reported it also works in <b>GNOME 48<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><b>The extension so far is not made into <a href=\"https:\/\/extensions.gnome.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extensions.gnome.org<\/a>, you can install it via the 3 commands below.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to clone the source:<\/p>\n<pre>git clone https:\/\/github.com\/AlexanderVanhee\/gradia-capture.git<\/pre>\n<p><i>Run <code>sudo apt install git<\/code> to install <code>git<\/code> if you don&#8217;t have it.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Next, navigate to the source folder:<\/p>\n<pre>cd gradia-capture<\/pre>\n<p>Finally, run the script to install the extension to local folder (<code>.local\/share\/gnome-shell\/extensions<\/code>):<\/p>\n<pre>.\/build.sh -i<\/pre>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-51134\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/install-gradia-capture-700x502.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"437\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/install-gradia-capture-700x502.webp 700w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/install-gradia-capture-300x215.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/install-gradia-capture-768x550.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/install-gradia-capture.webp 864w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>To apply changes, <b>log out and back in.<\/b> And, enable the extension in either &#8220;GNOME Extensions&#8221; or &#8220;Extension Manager&#8221; app, which are available in GNOME Software or App Center (filter by Debian package).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_51135\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-51135\" class=\"size-large wp-image-51135\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/enable-gradia-700x535.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/enable-gradia-700x535.webp 700w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/enable-gradia-300x229.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/enable-gradia-768x587.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/enable-gradia.webp 850w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-51135\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Enable the extension via Extension Manager<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Install Gradia for ORC support<\/h3>\n<p>As mentioned, the extension requires Gradia for the optical character recognition support.<\/p>\n<p>Fedora with third-party repository enabled can easily search &#038; install it from GNOME Software. While, Ubuntu and Ubuntu may run the 2 commands below one by one to get it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to enable Flatpak support:\n<pre>sudo apt install flatpak<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<li>Next, install <a href=\"https:\/\/flathub.org\/en\/apps\/be.alexandervanhee.gradia\" target=\"_blank\">Gradia flatpak package<\/a> via command:\n<pre>flatpak install https:\/\/dl.flathub.org\/repo\/appstream\/be.alexandervanhee.gradia.flatpakref<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/flatpak-gradia2604-700x461.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"402\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-51136\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/flatpak-gradia2604-700x461.webp 700w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/flatpak-gradia2604-300x198.webp 300w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/flatpak-gradia2604-768x506.webp 768w, https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/flatpak-gradia2604.webp 826w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Finally, press PrintScreen key or use the top-right quick settings menu option to trigger the screenshot tool, and you&#8217;ll see the new ORC button when selecting a rectangle area.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This tutorial shows how to enhance the default GNOME&#8217;s built-in screenshot tool with on-screen editing (annotation), OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and other basic features in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. GNOME, the default Ubuntu desktop, introduced built-in screenshot\/screencast tool since version 42. It&#8217;s great but lacks features such as changing saving directory and image file format.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[689,2397],"class_list":["post-51130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gnome-shell","category-howtos","tag-gnome","tag-ubuntu-26-04"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}