Standard Screen Capture
All versions of Windows have the built-in screen capture feature, allowing you to capture the entire screen or a single active window. The two options are detailed below:
Press the Print Screen (sometimes marked as Prt Sc or Prt Scn ) key on the keyboard (generally located in the top right-hand corner) to capture an image of the entire screen and store it in the Windows clipboard.
OR
- Press Alt & Print Screen (sometimes labeled as Prt Sc ) to capture an image of only the active window and store it in the Windows clipboard.
- In Windows 8, you can take a screenshot that automatically saves to a file by pressing the Windows logo key and the PrtSc key.
- On a tablet, hold the Windows logo button and the Volume down button. By default, the screenshot will save to C:\Users\ Username \Pictures\Screenshots.
When the desired image is stored in the Windows clipboard (only one image can be stored at a time), it can be extracted by opening a word processing program (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, etc.) or an image manipulation program (such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Paint), and selecting Paste from the Edit menu or pressing Ctrl-V.
Snipping Tool
In addition to Print Screen, Windows 7 introduced a screenshot application called Snipping Tool. Snipping Tool can capture a screenshot (or snip) of any object on your screen and then annotate, save, or share the image.
To launch the Snipping Tool:
- Click the Start button in the bottom left (if using Windows 8, go to the Start Screen).
- In the search box, type Snipping Tool, then click Snipping Tool in the list of results.
To capture a screen image:
- Click the arrow next to the New button to choose the “type” of snip.
- Select from Free-form Snip, Rectangular Snip, Window Snip, or Full-screen Snip.
- Once you have chosen one of the above options, select the area of your screen you want to capture. The screenshot should automatically open in a new window.