Ask Leo!

What's a Screen Shot, and how do I make one?

Home » Windows » Windows User Interface

Summary: A screen shot is an image of your entire computer screen, and it is fairly easy to capture this image.

What's a Screen Shot, and how do I make one?

A screen shot, or screen capture, is a way to "take a picture" of your computer screen.

Why?

Say you're trying to explain a computer problem to a technical friend of yours and you're trying to describe what you see on the screen: the dialogs, the buttons, the messages, whatever. You're not sure of the terms to use and your friend is having a difficult time understanding your description of what you see.

You know what they say: "A picture is worth a thousand words." And it can go a long way to eliminating miscommunication.

Let's take a picture of your screen and email it to your friend.

Ever wonder what the PrtScn key is for? A long time ago it did what you might think. Push it, and your printer would print an image of whatever was on your screen. It was kinda cool.

But that's not what it does in Windows today.

When you press the PrtScn an image of your screen is placed on your clipboard. Now, rather than printing it, you can do something with it.

Like email it to a friend.

First we need to make a file out of it. After you've pressed PrtScn, fire up your favorite image editor or use the Paint program that comes with Windows by pressing Start, All Programs, Accessories and then Paint. Now in Paint (or your equivalent), hit Edit, Paste and you should now have a image of your screen within the image editing program.

Now save this image to a file. Typically that means File, Save As.... Give it a filename you'll remember. I'd also suggest selecting either a JPEG or PNG file format instead of the default bitmap; they're smaller in file size.

Hopefully you can see the value. You're presented with a complex situation or a huge, long error message that you don't want to re-type and just wish that you could show someone. Press PrtScn, paste it into your paint program, save it to disk, and email the picture it as an attachment.

A couple of additional notes:

  • PrtScn takes a picture of the entire current screen.

  • ALT+PrtScn takes a picture of the currently active window only.

  • PrtScn does not work on blue screens. The Windows operating system provides the PrtScn functionality and if the operating system has crashed the function's not there.

Related:

Article 340 | Posted June 22, 2004

Recent Comments
39 Comments

I am hitting my print screen and going to paint and there is nothing showing up there to paste at all. Done it several times. I also tried ctrl plus alt prtscn. I am also running Windows Vista would that make a difference.

Posted by: Lori at January 18, 2008 5:17 PM

Great help!
I often use these trics (PrtScn - Alt PrtScn) mixed up with the freeware Windows Snapshot Maker to explain 'how to do things' to all my 'digilliterate' friends (in Dutch we call these digibeets from analfabeet, illiterate)
Works great, saves MUCH time!!!

Posted by: Allard at May 1, 2008 7:56 AM

How do i place a screen shot on a Forum????

Posted by: Stetson at July 9, 2008 3:19 PM

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Depends entirely on the forum. You'll need to with the
forum documenation to see how to upload pictures.

Leo


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFIdjeuCMEe9B/8oqERAiXxAJ9OPhpePVOMUNpay82tDu95kkPxpwCaA7jm
LRoWya42YX/av6LLwRSuy50=
=OOvz
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Posted by: Leo at July 10, 2008 9:24 AM

Dear Leo, your tip is very helpful, but the european keyboard does not have a PrtScr key for this task. How could I use this function? Thank you for your help!
Stefano

Posted by: Stefano Pasini at September 12, 2008 2:20 AM

I cannot get this to work and it's driving me nuts...any other suggestions??

Posted by: Donna Pullan at September 26, 2008 2:13 PM

I am hitting my print screen and going to paint and there is nothing showing up there to paste at all. Done it several times. I also tried ctrl plus alt prtscn. I am also running Windows XP would that make a difference.

Posted by: avi at October 17, 2008 12:43 PM

Hey thanks! That's exactly what I needed to know! Finally, I can make those ever important screen shots.

Posted by: Will T at October 21, 2008 8:47 PM

i want to send to my friend only a portion of the entire screen shot. how do i take out the area which contains the information my friend needs.

Posted by: Don at November 10, 2008 8:03 PM

I wish to thank You for answering my question on How to capture screenshots from my computer. I am relatively new to computers. and you have been a great help. Thanks again

Posted by: Corky at November 22, 2008 6:37 AM

Post a comment on "What's a Screen Shot, and how do I make one?":






(Email Address will not be published.)

Remember Me?

By popular demand...
my tip jar
Cuppa Joe
Buy Leo a Latte!

(you may use HTML tags for style)

New!

RSS feed Subscribe to the RSS Feed specifically for comments on this article.

Before commenting, please...

Please wait. Your comment is being processed ...


Ask Your Question:


ask-leo.com
Web

Stay Informed

Weekly Newsletter

Archives

By Category
By Date

Advertisers

Advertise on Ask Leo!

««   »»

Question? - Ask Leo!
Who is Leo?
Link to Leo!

Terms, Conditions & Privacy