How to take a (free) screen shot of your PC
“Screen capture” software lets you take a still image of your computer screen by pressing a button on your keyboard. Handy? Sure, but some of these programs can cost up to $40. Here’s a little secret: Windows has a built-in screen capture utility. Here’s how to use it…
"Screen capture" software lets you take a still image of your computer screen by pressing a button on your keyboard. Handy? Sure, but some of these programs can cost up to $40. Here’s a little secret: Windows has a built-in screen capture utility. Here’s how to use it…
1. When you see something you want to take a screen grab of — such as a website, document or error message you want to send to a tech-savvy friend for help — simply press the Prnt Scrn ("Print Screen") button located in the top right of your computer keyboard.
2. Nothing will happen, so you might not think it worked, but it did. In order to see the snapshot, however, you need to open up the free Microsoft Paint program (Start> All Programs> Accessories> Paint).
3. Once inside Paint, click Edit at the top of the screen, and then choose Paste. The snapshot you took will appear on the screen.
4. To save the image to your hard drive, perhaps to email to someone as a JPEG photo, simply click File at the top of the screen, then Save As, give it a name and select where to save it. That’s it!
Pay versions of screen capture programs might contain additional features, but this free solution is ideal for most users.
Mac users who want to take a screen grab can press Control-Command-Shift-3, which also copies the file to clipboard, and then can be saved somewhere on the hard drive.
Filed Under: Computers & Software
When you press "Print Screen" it takes a snapshot of the entire display. This would include the entire wide screen spanned across multiple monitors.
Makes for a huge image file.
To take a shot of only a dialog box (an error message), press alt+Print screen.
This capture only the active window, the one with the blue title bar
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this is so cool it actually works
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Found this great free program that will do all this automagically!
It will save the captured area, autoname the file and even attach it to an email if you want.
No need to paste it into Paint and save it etc,
Give Gadwin screenprint a try.
http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/
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who DOESN'T know what this is? -_-
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"There's still alot of us (newbies) out here.I thought it was an awesome tip."
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NOOBS
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John on February 22 at 10:31 PM | Report abuse
Found this great free program that will do all this automagically!
It will save the captured area, autoname the file and even attach it to an email if you want.
No need to paste it into Paint and save it etc,
Give Gadwin screenprint a try.
http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/
YES SURE' it's not free, it's only 30 days free trial, why say it's free then ?? NOOB
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n00bslayer on February 23 at 10:25 PM | Report abuse
NOOBS
HEY you were a NOOBS once too when you started, dont be so disrespectfull and so idiot on other people who are new to computers in general, i hate people like you.
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Is there a screen-capture program that will capture an entire window that is too big (ie. has scroll bars) to fit on the screen?
By the way, rather than use MS Paint to handle images, I use Irfanview, which really is free.
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Well I just tried it but nothing happened. I pressed the print screen button, opened paint went to edit but the paste was not highlighted. Clicked on paste anyway but still nothing. Any suggestions.
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The print screen function needs an active window. If you are sitting on the desktop, you will get nothing. Open a program and make it the active window, and then try it.
I dispensed with Paint ages ago for this purpose. I find that if I need a screen shot of something, I generally also need to document the circumstances, so I just paste into a word document, and type away. It helps the tech support clone at the other end put your screen shot into context.
The next step is to use Ctrl-PrintScrn together to get the entire visible display. This is handy when you have multiple windows interacting and one needs to be documented with settings etc visible in the others.
Of course, if you are having to contact tech support, the software is not well set up and/or robust enough. Consider replacement!
So this "feature" does work, and anyone paying for this sort of feature is wasting money better spent on a high speed connection or security features for their computers.
By the way, this worked even before Windows – Print Screen has been on keyboards for ages…
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Ive been using a FREE program for 5 years now, called Printkey 2000 (v 5.10)full. While it isn't available from the maker anymore, you can still find it on the net. Uses your keyboard printscreen key. Select all or part of your screen and save! that's it. GREAT quickie screen capture program! And it never causes any problems for me. http://www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?ID=292
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I tried this on my laptop, and it doesn't work.
When I go into paint, the paste is not shown, the only button that shows is paste from, and when I click that,
It shows my computer files.
Is it different for laptops?
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This doesn't work on my computer either, never has. I've tried every other combination of keys I can think of (e.g F Lock off, Ctrl-Alt-Prtscrn), nothing appears in the clipboard. I'm wondering if there's a setting somewhere that might affect this?
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You may have to press a Function button first (Fn) and then press the Prt sc button. Also, after pressing the Prt sc button, try pasting it (ctrl + v) into WordPad. WordPad can be found in Start: All Programs: Accessories if you haven't used it recently.
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For those complaining that this does not work:
It is likely you have one of those stupid Microsoft keyboards that has the F-lock.
Microsoft in all their wisdom has added yet another way to do things. Likely in the hopes of making life better for computer users too lazy to learn what is already there.
When the F-lock is on, the function keys work as normal.
The default is OFF, causing the key to operate with the alternate functions printed on the top of the key such as: Help (F1), Undo (ctrl+z), Redo (ctrl+y), new (ctrl+n), Open (ctrl+o), close (ctrl+F4), Reply (ctrl+r), Forward (ctrl+F), Send (ctrl+s or alt+s), Spell (F7), and Print (ctrl+P).
Go into the help system for your program, normally accessed by pressing F1 or selecting Help menu then select "Program name" Help.
Also, if a user makes the effort to look, most shortcut key assignments are located to the right side of the menu item.
Bottom line, computers are tools, and as such ALL Users really should make the effort to learn how to use them. Take a course if you are not autodidactic, look in the help system for the program being used, start and maintain a list of shortcuts learned each day and make an effort to learn one more thing every day.
If a user is not willing to learn, go back to menial labour, then you will not need to learn anything.
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….40 bucks?! Yikes! And hey, don't hate on the new guys, everybody's got to learn somehow.
On my computer I have to hold down the function key. I don't really use the feature all that often. It's good for projects, though. For most laptops, because of the keyboard size, the buttons hold more than one function, on mine it's written in a different colour that corresponds with the label on the function key. On some, usually peripheral keyboards, there are commands on the sides of some keys (for example, the p might have *Print, meaning you'd have to press Ctrl, which might have a * on it. Some microsoft keyboards have this.
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You can copy the screen print into any MS Office program – Word, Excel, Outlook email, Powerpoint, Publisher. Probably others as well if you try.
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Microsoft has a Snipping Tool available in the Accessories folder if all you want to do is capture a portion of your screen so you can save, annotate or share the image. I've used it several times.
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I think that it is disgusting that a person can go on the web and be verbally attacked and it is deemed acceptable. It is sad that a moderator would let this happen. NOT everyone is computer savvy ,but god give them credit for trying.When someone belittles others for their inexperience it just shows there ignorance not their intelligence.
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