Is there a way to capture an image of the screen in python with ctypes?

Question

I want to have python save an image file of the whole screen as a variable with ctypes so that I could access the screen in a program and do something with it (like put it on a pygame window). I can't use any other libraries unless they are included with python (no installing or pip). Does anyone know how to do this?

Edit: I'm using windows 10.

I think this is platform specific and it would help if you told us what OS you are running. — Benoît P, Feb 16 '19 at 23:45
I guess graphics, because I want to test it by displaying the screen on a pygame window. — object-Object, Feb 16 '19 at 23:46
I think he wants to read pixel values, so it doesn't really matter — Benoît P, Feb 16 '19 at 23:46
Sorry if my question is hard to understand, I'm fairly new to python and don't know what some things are called. — object-Object, Feb 16 '19 at 23:47
Do you want to A: Make a screen reader for blind people that reads the screen B: read pixel values on the screen (Colours) — Benoît P, Feb 16 '19 at 23:50
[this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42636933/get-rgb-value-from-screen-pixels-with-python/42638275) can get you started. (it uses [this](https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/3.0.x/reference/ImageGrab.html)) — Benoît P, Feb 16 '19 at 23:53
A) `pygame` is not included with python, B) your question is too broad, I suggest that you limit your question to: "Can I read pixel values of window in `pygame`?" — Alex Yu, Feb 17 '19 at 00:02
I thought pygame was included with python. Also, I just need to read pixel values. Sending the screen to a pygame window was just an example. — object-Object, Feb 17 '19 at 00:04

Benoît P · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-17T00:26:36.270

1

PIL.ImageGrab is from PILLOW (a python image library fork which you can install with pip). You can give a bounding box or capture the entire screen.

Update: OP now mentions he can't use external libraries.

Then you could virtually hit printscreen and read the clipboard. The code of PILLOW is open-source feel free to use it.

Remember that you can always call a command from within python:

>>> import os
>>> os.system("pip install pillow")

Or download the zip of the library and import it in your code.

edited Feb 17 '19 at 00:26

answered Feb 16 '19 at 23:58

Benoît P

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I can't use pip. I'm using a school laptop to do this, and the command prompt is blocked. – object-Object Feb 16 '19 at 23:58
I will try that. – object-Object Feb 17 '19 at 00:39
My school doesn't have pip installed. I'll have to try virtually hitting printscreen. I made my own library for controlling the mouse and keyboard, so that is possible for me. – object-Object Feb 17 '19 at 00:47
Manually hitting printscreen doesn't seem to work with my clipboard. I think it copies the picture, but won't paste it in file explorer. It seems to just clear my clipboard. – object-Object Feb 17 '19 at 00:53
pip is installed with Python usually try `python -m pip install pillow`. For the clipboard, try pasting it in paint. – Benoît P Feb 17 '19 at 18:39
Well I don't have admin so it gets denied access. – object-Object Feb 17 '19 at 23:59
It does paste in paint – object-Object Feb 18 '19 at 00:00
I'll make a new question for that – object-Object Feb 18 '19 at 00:02
That won't work, every time I hit printscreen it saves it to my onedrive – object-Object Feb 18 '19 at 00:43
I turned that off, maybe I can try hitting printscreen now. – object-Object Feb 19 '19 at 20:04

Is there a way to capture an image of the screen in python with ctypes?

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