Tech Tips – Screen Captures


Tech Tips / Friday, July 13th, 2012

Have you ever tried to explain to someone how to do something on their computer when you’re not near them, but they just don’t seem to understand your directions? Do you ever want to share a small part of what you see on your screen but don’t know how? Fear not, there is a way. A couple of ways, actually.

You may have known you can use the PrtSc (Print Screen) button on your keyboard to snap an image of your screen and save it to your clip board. But this isn’t always idea because it grabs the screen when you only need a small part of it. Fortunately, there are better tools built into our operating systems. These tools allow you to easily select and save small bits of your screen for sharing.

Windows Vista and Windows 7: Use the Snipping Tool. Press the Windows key, type “Snip” and press enter. The snipping tool will give you crosshairs to select the portion of the screen to capture. You can either snip a rectangle, free form snip, a whole window, or your whole screen. After you snip, you can mark it up with notes, if necessary, and then save it to your hard drive for sharing.

Mac OSX: Use the Mac utility Grab (Applications->Utilities folder). Like the Windows Snipping Tool, you can grab a portion of the screen, an open window, or the whole screen. Choose your desired option and start saving.

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