T he world of Linux applications is known to have a massive number of small accessories and handy utilities for almost every task. Our quest this time is to edit screenshots with a brand new and already very capable tool called Annotator. This application joins a family of existing tools such as Ksnip, Flameshot and Shutter, which you may already use. Annotator,however, can’t take screenshots itself; it focuses on annotating – adding elements to original images. In that sense, Annotator is an advanced image viewer, or special-purpose editor, if you wish. The application enables you to open any valid image file or paste the contents of the clipboard (provided it contains a screenshot or manually copied image).
The main benefit of using Annotator is that its impressive set of tools is nicely arranged and easily available. For example, with Annotator you can add arrows, boxes, shapes, counter badges and many other sorts of visual highlights. It is also possible to obfuscate sensitive data by blurring certain areas using the Blur Box tool, emphasise areas with Magnifier and, of course, play with text captions and enjoy rich text editing. Whatever you decide to add to an image stays editable and movable. Any added shape (except for fancy stickers) is a vector object, which you can drag or resize. You can change the nodes of complex shapes such as arrows and transform them into other shapes.