Bug 510534

Spectacle’s annotation editor already includes excellent tools for cropping, blurring, and highlighting. However, one powerful editing feature still missing compared to other screenshot tools (like Snagit) is the ability to “cut out” a horizontal or vertical strip of the image — effectively removing unwanted sections while keeping the rest stitched together.

This is particularly useful when you want to:

Remove empty space or irrelevant middle portions of a long window or web page.

Hide sensitive information located in a specific row or column.

Create compact, focused screenshots for documentation or presentations.

Proposed Behavior

Add a new tool in the editor, for example called “Cut Out”, available in the toolbar next to “Crop”.

How it works:

The user selects a rectangular region across the full width (for horizontal cut) or full height (for vertical cut).

The selected area is deleted, and the two remaining parts of the image are automatically joined together.

Optionally, add a small configurable gap or separator line between the joined parts (useful for visual clarity).

Example

In Snagit, the “Cut Out” tool allows removing a section in the middle of a screenshot — e.g. deleting a long list of repetitive items or blank space between UI elements — while keeping the top and bottom parts seamlessly merged.
Spectacle could implement a similar feature to make quick, lightweight screenshot editing possible without needing an external editor.

Benefits

Makes Spectacle a more complete, standalone screenshot and annotation tool.

Saves time in documentation and bug reporting workflows.

Keeps Spectacle competitive with professional tools like Snagit.

OS: Ubuntu 25.04
KDE Plasma: 6.4.5
Qt Version: 6.8.3
Spectacle: 6.4.5