One of the most common questions I receive as an editor comes by way of authors asking about the best way to take screenshots for use within their books. This is a particular challenge for our open source books, because it’s not uncommon for screenshots to be taken of various applications running on both Windows and Linux.

The solution I’ve long embraced has been the Gimp, which runs on all manner of platforms, Windows and Linux included. Once installed, just navigate to File > Acquire > Screenshot and choose to grab the entire screen or just a specific window. Works like a charm.