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Tech Tips: Screen Shots
Taking a screen shot of your computer display is much easier than using a camera. In this edition of Tech Tips we’ll look at the two most basic and common types of screen shots and how you can put them to use.
Screen Shots
To copy an image of your entire Microsoft Windows screen, press the Print Screen button which is located in the upper-right section of the keyboard. Some keyboards abbreviate the label of the button, so yours may be marked “Prt Sc” or a similar variation.
If you only want to copy the active window, rather than the entire screen, press Alt + Print Screen.
Uses
After taking the screen shot (also referred to as “screen capture”) the image is in your system clipboard. The image can then be pasted into applications using the Paste button within the application, or using the Paste command from the application’s Edit menu.
Pasting the image into a graphics application like Microsoft Paint or Adobe Photoshop will allow you to edit the screen shot, for eventual use in newsletters, web sites, presentations, etc.
A particularly handy use for a screen shot is to preserve a copy of a long or complex Windows Error Message dialog box. Instead of trying to write it down accurately, or remember it, you can copy the active window and save it for future reference. This can also be a handy way to email the error message to your favorite computer guru for analysis.
Alternatives
Screen shots can be so useful that applications have been developed for this specific need. TechSmith’s SnagIt is just one example of specialized software featuring advanced capture and edit capabilities for screen shots. Users who take a lot of screen shots or edit them frequently can save a lot of time by using a program like SnagIt. Most of us, however, will find that the Print Screen and Alt + Print Screen buttons may provide all of the functionality we need for occasional copies of our computer displays.
This article also appeared in News from a Light in the Valley.