The Tekblog

You have probably at least heard the term “Screen Shot”. It is simply referring to a capture of the content of your computer screen to a picture.

All versions of Microsoft Windows support the “PR Scrn” or “Print Screen” button. On a standard keyboard this is left of the “Scroll lock” key. When you press this button, a capture of your screen content is taken and copied to your clipboard. You can then paste this information into an e-mail,  a document or even into any picture editing software. If you depress the “ALT” key while  tapping the “Print Screen” button, a capture will be made of the currently selected window only  – as opposed to your entire desktop. This is a neat trick if you have large, or even Dual monitors. It will allow you to avoid capturing an image that is the entire size of your display(s). 

For the “power user” types and other people in an “information worker” position, it is useful to only capture a specific section of your screen instead of a complete window. or maybe you want to make some other notations on your screen captured information. There are a few different ways to do this.

1.) Windows Vista Snipping Tool – This is a free Microsoft utility that is installed in Windows Vista and Windows 7 by default. This app will allow you to “lasso select” information on your screen and capture it to your clipboard or a file of your choosing. It is designed for Tablet PC support.

2.) PicPick - This is probably the best free Screen Capture utility. This application is as fully featured as the best commercial products and is also portable. Being portable allows you to put it on your USB drive and “carry” it around from computer to computer without having to actually install it on each computer.

3.) Snag-it – This is the program I use and its probably the most highly regarded commercial screen capturing utility. It’s not free, but for $39.99 you get truly great utility that has all sort of built in conveniences – like pre-drawn shapes, such as arrows rectangles for use in annotating your captures and will store all of your captures for future reference or use. This is one of my “must have” applications that gets installed on any of my “regular” computers. 

One of the ways that I use screen shots to be more productive is to capture interesting information that I may want to review later. I capture the information and then store it in Microsoft OneNote – which is a whole other conversation about information management. The point here is that capturing information on your screen is a great way to archive things for later reference or to use as a means to more clearly communicate something to someone through e-mail.