The process of taking a screenshot is very simple. It involves some basic steps and it differs according to the operating system of your computer. Learn the process through this article.
A screenshot is a shot/picture of your computer screen at a particular moment. It’s an exact image of your entire computer screen. Knowing how to do it has many benefits. If you get a caution message while using a certain software or if there is an error, you can take the screenshots of those errors and warnings and show them as a proof to the software vendor or their help center. You can also use it in tutorials to make your point clear. Some websites do not let you directly copy their text (copyrights issues). In such a case, a screenshot can come in handy.
Capturing a Screenshot on Windows XP
It is very easy to do it on windows XP and save the resulting image in any file format on the computer. Firstly, you have to go to the page you want to capture. Then you can press the ‘Print screen’ button on your keyboard. You will find it on the top-right area of the keyboard. The image below shows the screenshot.
Next you have to open the paint program which is available with every Windows operating system. You can open it by following this path – Start → All Programs → Accessories → Paint. Go to the edit option on the top and click on ‘Paste’. Alternately, you can also press ‘cntrl+V’. Below you can see it in ‘Paint’.
Here you can crop the image as per your needs or keep it as it is. To save the image, go to ‘File’ and select ‘Save as’. Here you can also choose the format of the image (jpg, gif, etc.).
Capturing a Screenshot on Windows 7
The above method will also work on Windows 7, but this advanced operating system provides you some other options as well.
- Go to the page which you want to capture. If you want to capture a page which is below the part you see currently on the screen, then scroll down to that paricular part.
- Press the windows icon on the bottom left and enter ‘snip’. This will take you to the ‘snipping tool’. Click on it. A small window will open on your screen.
- Here you can choose various options for taking a screenshot. You can even capture only a part of the screen.
- The best thing is that, with this tool you don’t have to go through Paint. You can directly save your image from here.