Insert a scaled screenshot in emacs org-mode

@marjoleink asked on identi.ca [1]¹, if it is possible to use emacs org-mode for showing scaled screenshots inline while writing. Since I thought I’d enjoy some hacking, I decided to take the challenge.

It does not do auto-scaling of embedded images, as far as I know, but the use case of screenshots can be done with a simple function (add this to your ~/.emacs or ~/.emacs.d/init.el):

(defun org-insert-scaled-screenshot ()
  "Insert a scaled screenshot 
for inline display 
into your org-mode buffer."
  (interactive)
  (let ((filename 
         (concat "screenshot-" 
                 (substring 
                  (shell-command-to-string 
                   "date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S")
                  0 -1 )
                 ".png")))
    (let ((scaledname 
           (concat filename "-width300.png")))

      (shell-command 
       (concat "import -window root " 
               filename))
      (shell-command 
       (concat "convert -adaptive-resize 300 " 
               filename " " scaledname))
      (insert (concat "[[./" scaledname "]]")))))

Now just call M-x org-redisplay-inline-images to see the screenshot (or add it to the function).

In action:

Have fun with Emacs - and happy hacking!

PS: In case it’s not obvious: The screenshot shows emacs just as the screenshot is being shot - with the method shown here ☺)