Why did this not come to my head. My idea was to use video capture card, connect that to another computer or phone, set screens to mirror and then take snapshot of the video.
This is what I do, I can’t speak for Mint’s screenshot tool, but Spectacle for KDE will indeed freeze the whole screen after a set timer - allowing you to open context menus and whatnot. Then on the “frozen” image you can highlight only a specific section of the screen to screenshot, make annotations, etc.
Spectacle is one of the things I miss the most every time I try out GNOME again for a bit.
With the MATE screenshot tool, you can set a timer and set it to either capture the active window or the whole desktop. It will capture context menus when using the timer.
I’ve worked with lawyers a bit in an IT role so I’ll put it bluntly. Don’t bother.
Why? You have to ensure complete compatibility with Microsoft Office standards in your job and you may also need to access third-party systems especially document management systems on a regular basis. These things require Windows. It’s a sad fact of life that your colleagues being able to read your documents and ensure consistent layout is more important than anything else.
Yes, you can try Libre Office and soforth. However, the moment the court staff, other lawyers or anybody else gets a jumbled mess you’re going to cause yourself more problems than it’s worth. Even you yourself need to be able to ensure compatibility when it comes to information storage and retrieval too.
Windows licences are essentially free with your devices anyway and the cost of Office is a couple of hundred bucks top. Money might be tight but losing information from your court cases could put you out of business.
Sorry Linux fanboys, but Windows is the superior option here as much as I wish it was not. It’s simply the best tool for the job.
First: windows isn’t the superior option. This is basically windows being VHS, Linux being betamax. Linux is vastly superior, but it’s just that Microsoft marketing is too good at lying.
Second: Linux is very apt at running Microsoft programs, including office.
Third: fuck Microsoft office, use online office in a browser. Microsoft office 365 if you’re dumb (because my god, it’s cringy bad, or google docs if you want it easy (eats most Ms crap with little to no trouble) or if you want to go truely open source, setup nextcloud with only office.
Side comment: if governments or courts FOCRE you to pay money to a specific company to use services that can quite easily be done by open source alternatives then I say that smells like corruption and or incompetence.
About your side comment - It isn’t necessarily that they’re being forced to use Office. It’s more that office is the standard that everyone else is using, and therefore the standard everyone expects to work with. If anything breaks or displays incorrectly, it becomes your fault for not using the standard.
To be clear, I hate Microsoft and their monopoly, and the blaming I just described as well. It definitely happens though. Same reason most of Gen Z uses iPhones: if you have an Android phone any problem with phones/chatting suddenly becomes your fault, even if the underlying reason is actually because of Apple.
But that’s the point: it’s NOT a standard and government or justice departments should require open standards so that EVERYONE can participate because everyone MUST participate. Now the government at least allows the defacto forced sponsoring of a single damn near monopoly. Want to use the government? Sorry, gotta pay your Microsoft taxes first. That is not okay, not acceptable. There are loads of open standards that can be and should be used and enforced
Like or not, it’s a de facto standard. Good luck trying to convince your colleagues to change their workflow.
I love Linux, but I would never recommend using Microsoft Office on Linux especially if you work in a collaborative environment. Saying that Linux can run Microsoft office without any issue is a blatant lie. I run virtual machines basically so I can run Microsoft Office, but I don’t think everyone wants to go though that much hassle.
You are right in everything except that it’s absolutely not the superior option in OPs situation. A lawyer has to guarantee that a document is identical and recallable in its exact form even years from now and the only way to absolutely ensure this is using Office itself.
Furthermore, most law firms use and have to access other parties document management systems and the thick clients for these with all the features only run on Windows. Screwing around with WINE to get these maybe working isn’t worth the hassle for a time-poor lawyer with cases to work on.
Computers are just another tool in the box when it comes to your business and you should use the best version of it to get the job done. It’s simply only Windows in OPs case here that’s the viable option. It might be corruption or vendor lock in or whatever but there’s no point trying to fight it in this scenario.
Testing on my own computer, one workaround appears to be to use unmodified PrintScreen, leaving a hand free for the mouse, and quickly right-click for the context menu after the keypress but before the Save pop-up appears.
A PITA to be sure, but it does capture the context menu.
As for cropping down a full-screen capture, I tend to use PhotoFlare for jobs like that (find it in Software Manager) assuming you haven't anything else installed that does the job.
I’m a selfhoster, I setup a home assistant VM and Cosmos Cloud running a bunch of Docker containers, all setup using Cockpit.
Easier, and better looking UI than Proxmox. Also this setup enabled me to use Docker instead of LXD and save on one virtualization layer, which as a beginner every layer adds complexity.
It has been rock solid, it has better hardware support than Debian due to the faster release cycle, only drawback is the lack of documentation or tutorials in comparison to Debian which has a colossal community.
Linux is vastly superior. I’ve been on Linux desktop for over 20 years now, I’ll never go back.
As a typical example: this weekend I install Linux (with download and making iso) takes 20 minutes, I install windows (first time in decades, something for my son), took fucking 6 hours, 14 attempts, loads of problem searching on internet.
Having said that, there are some things to keep in mind. Linux mostly (to users) is slightly different on a few details, and because of Microsoft, there are some things to keep in mind.
You’re a lawyer, so you might have to deal with Microsoft documents. Those you can process with LibreOffice (I don’t like it very much, like Microsoft office), google drive (works very nice, but is still closed source, google) or your own hosted linux server with nextcloud and only office (a bit harder to setup but then it’s all yours and under your control)
Look into any closed source windows applications that are required. Most windows programs run also under Linux (wine, proton, and these days various other solutions up to a virtual machine with windows for those few exceptions that won’t work on Linux for some reason)
Video formats are non-issue, Linux eats everything and mostly out of the box.
Then, Linux has distributions. See it as different car brands. They’re all cars, based on the same tech, just different brand names that do details slightly different. You gotta choose a distro (distribution). I HIGHLY recommend either fedora or (my person Lal preference) a Ubuntu variant. I personally have been using kubuntu for over a decade now. The graphical user interface works mostly like windows (just better) and most programs have Ubuntu ready Linux versions available, making installing them super easy. Install VirtualBox (free, as usual) to run windows in a virtual machine if needed, and setup multiple desktops so that you can easily switch to a windows desktop when needed (hopefully, and likely, never)
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