Use Print Screen

"Print screen" is another term for a screen capture, screenshot, or taking a picture of your screen. Taking a picture of your screen can be useful for a variety of reasons, such as uploading an image for a software manual. Though some PC keyboards even have a "Print screen" button while Mac keyboards do not, you can easily take a screenshot on a Mac and a variety of PC systems. If you want to know how to print screen in under a minute, just follow these steps.

Steps

Use Print Screen in Windows XP

  1. Take a full-screen screenshot. Press the Prnt Scrn button on your keyboard to take a screenshot. This will take a shot of your entire screen.[1]
    • If Prnt Scrn is purple then press Fn + Prnt Scrn.
  2. Take a screen shot of a single window. If you'd only like to take a shot of one window, then make sure the window is dominant on your screen and press Prnt Scrn + Alt.
  3. Open Microsoft Paint. To do this, click on the Start menu, then "All Programs," then "Accessories," and then "Paint."
  4. Paste the image into Paint. To do this, simply press Control + V or go to "Edit" and select "Paste." This will paste the screenshot into Paint.
  5. Save the image. Click on "File" and "Save as" to save and name your file. Once you've named your file, click "Save." After this step is completed, you have used print screen and have successfully saved the image.

Use Print Screen in Windows Vista and Windows 7

  1. Find the Snipping Tool. You can do this by clicking "Start," then "All Programs," then "Accessories," and then "Snipping Tool." You can also just open the Start menu and type "snip" and wait for the Snipping Tool to appear. You can find the Snipping Tool in any version of Windows Vista except Home Basic.[1]
  2. Open the Snipping Tool. Click on the Snipping Tool to open it.
  3. Select "New." This will bring down a list of Snipping Tool options.
  4. Choose the appropriate Snipping Tool option. There are four options that allow you to use print screen in different ways.[2] Here are the options and how they are used:
    • Free-form Snip. This option allows you create and capture any shape around your screen.
    • Rectangular Snip. This will allow you to snip a rectangular area of the screen.
    • Window Snip. This option allows you to capture one full window.
    • Full-screen Snip. This option allows you to snip the whole screen.
  5. Select the area that you would like to capture. Based on the option you chose, you will now select the area that you will capture.
    • If you used the "Free-form Snip," then you'll use your mouse to draw around the area you want to capture.
    • If you used the "Rectangular Snip," then you can draw a rectangle across the screen.
    • For "Window Snip," just select the window you'd like to capture.
    • If you selected "Full-screen Snip," then it would have already captured the image.
  6. Save the image. Just click the disk on the top left of the Snipping Tool to save the image. The image has already been automatically copied to the Windows clipboard.

Use Print Screen on a Mac

  1. Capture the entire screen. To capture the entire screen, press Command + Shift + 3. This will instantly take a shot of your screen -- you will even hear the sound of a camera taking a picture. This will also automatically save the image to a file on your desktop.[3]
  2. Capture any rectangular portion of the screen. To capture any rectangular portion of the screen, press Command + Shift + 4. This will turn your mouse into a tool that can select any portion of the screen. Simply drag the mouse around the desired portion and then let go of the keys to take a screenshot.
  3. Save the image to the clipboard instead of to a permanent file. Press Control along with the other functions to save the image to the clipboard temporarily instead of to a permanent file. This will allow you to copy and paste the screen image into another application, such as software that allows you to edit the image.

Tips

  • If you press "Prnt Scrn" again before you have saved the image, the previous screenshot will be replaced by the new one.
  • And if you use the clipboard again then the image or text you have just copied will replace your screenshot.
  • To take a screenshot of the current window only, press "Alt" + "Prt Scrn"
  • Print screen may not always look like "Prnt Scrn". Use your eyes: if it looks like an abbreviated version of "Print Screen", it probably is.

Things You'll Need

  • A computer
  • Windows (This tutorial is not for Mac or Linux)
  • A keyboard
  • Something on the screen that you want a screenshot of.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.addintools.com/documents/others/how-to-take-screen-shots.html
  2. ↑ http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Use-Snipping-Tool-to-capture-screen-shots
  3. ↑ http://www.howstuffworks.com/macs/how-to-take-screenshots-on-mac.htm
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