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Screen Capture - Take a Picture of Your Screen

Those of us who used computers in the "DOS days" remember a command called Print Screen. It did just that...printed the information on the screen from your printer. In fact, the key on the keyboard called "Print Screen" or "PrtScn" still exists on most keyboards. It's usually near the top between the number pad and the letter keys.

Most users don't know that Windows provides a tool to allow you to print the screen, though it works in a different way. When you hit the Print Screen key on your keyboard, it copies a picture of the screen to the clipboard. Once it has been copied, you are free to paste it into any application.

When you use the Print Screen key, you won't see anything visible happen, but nevertheless the computer has taken a picture of your screen at that moment.  It is holding the image in memory, waiting for you to paste it somewhere, such as into a Word document.  To paste the image, open a word processor or digital imaging program and use the CTRL and V keys simultaneously to paste the image into the program

Examples:

• Paste the picture into a word processor and print it.
• Paste the picture into Word and save it. (I use this as a way to save a picture of settings, email configurations, or other hard-to-write information.
• Paste the picture into an image editing program to crop it or edit it.  Add arrows, callouts, or text to clarify an example.

Capture Just One Window

To take this same idea another step, capture just the active window rather than the entire screen. Hold down the Alt key while tapping the Print Screen key and only the active window is copied to the clipboard. Continue the process to paste that window into an application.

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