How to Capture a "Screen Shot"
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 9:20 am
How to Capture a Screen Shot of your Desktop or the Active Window in "Windows"
Have you ever pressed the "Print Screen" key on your Windows keyboard and wondered why it was there since it never seemed to do anything? Well, it does do something! It places an image of your screen on the "clipboard", ready to paste into any graphics program. These steps show you how to use it along with Windows' standard image editor, Microsoft Paint. to save an image of your screen.
You cannot navigate to or manipulate the clipboard directly; it's only used for copy and paste operations.
Here's How:
1. Press the Print Screen key on your keyboard.
2. Open an image editing program, such as Microsoft Paint.
3. Go to the Edit menu and choose Paste.
4. If prompted to enlarge the image, choose Yes.
5. Optional: Use your image editor to crop out unnecessary portions of the screen shot.
6. Go to the File Menu and choose Save As.
7. Navigate to the folder where you want to save the image.
8. Type a file name for the image.
9. Select a file type.
10. Click the Save button.
You are now ready to post the image to the forum in your usual way.
Tips:
1. Hold the Alt key down while pressing Print Screen to capture only the Active Window.
2. Generally this works best when saving screen shots of application windows. The clipboard often makes screen shots of text blurry.
3. For better results, professional aftermarket Screen Capture programs may be purchased online.
These offer many more options for capturing screens and portions of screens on Windows and Macintosh computers.
Have you ever pressed the "Print Screen" key on your Windows keyboard and wondered why it was there since it never seemed to do anything? Well, it does do something! It places an image of your screen on the "clipboard", ready to paste into any graphics program. These steps show you how to use it along with Windows' standard image editor, Microsoft Paint. to save an image of your screen.
You cannot navigate to or manipulate the clipboard directly; it's only used for copy and paste operations.
Here's How:
1. Press the Print Screen key on your keyboard.
2. Open an image editing program, such as Microsoft Paint.
3. Go to the Edit menu and choose Paste.
4. If prompted to enlarge the image, choose Yes.
5. Optional: Use your image editor to crop out unnecessary portions of the screen shot.
6. Go to the File Menu and choose Save As.
7. Navigate to the folder where you want to save the image.
8. Type a file name for the image.
9. Select a file type.
10. Click the Save button.
You are now ready to post the image to the forum in your usual way.
Tips:
1. Hold the Alt key down while pressing Print Screen to capture only the Active Window.
2. Generally this works best when saving screen shots of application windows. The clipboard often makes screen shots of text blurry.
3. For better results, professional aftermarket Screen Capture programs may be purchased online.
These offer many more options for capturing screens and portions of screens on Windows and Macintosh computers.