Screenshots are a great way to document a case, point and share what’s on your screen. Be it’s a tweet, you’re explaining to a tech support person or a just using to share interesting things on your screen, the ability to save your screen is useful tool.
If you don’t know how to take screenshots, then you’re really missing out. Luckily, there are many ways to capture a screenshot. One of them is the old Print Screen button, a button that instantly capture your screen as copied file which you can paste into Windows Paint and save as an image. .
Also, there is a built-in Windows tool called Snipping Tool that easily capture your screen in no less time with no effort. So you can use this if you want advanced screen capturing features.
And of course there is always a third-party app you can use to capture your screenshots. So we’ve explained 3 ways you capture screenshots on Windows 10.
How to Take Screenshot With the Print Screen Button
There are many ways to take screenshot with the print screen button which are
a. How To Take a Screenshot of Your Whole Screen
Press the Print screen button on your keyboard. Note: In case you are using a laptop, you can press the combination of “Fn” button with the print screen button.
Then screenshot is now stored in your clipboard and you need to paste it into a image or graphic editor like Windows Paint. So open the Paint, paste it in and then save it as you would with a normal file.
b. How to Take a Screenshot of Just The Active Window
Press the combination of Alt + Print Screen buttons together to take a screenshot of the active window. Note: In case you are using a laptop, you can press the combination of “Fn” button with the alt and print screen button.
This is very useful in case you only want to capture the active window using that to save your time of cropping it.
Then screenshot is now stored in your clipboard and you need to paste it into a image or graphic editor like Windows Paint. So open the Paint, paste it in and then save it as you would with a normal file.
c. How To Take a Screenshot File directly without copying and pasting
Just press the combination of Windows Key + Print Screen button together if you want to save your time opening the image editor, pasting and saving the screenshot captured. Note: In case you are using a laptop, you can press the combination of “Fn” button with the alt and print screen button.
Pressing this will save the screenshot directly in your Screenshot folder in Picture file with a default name “screenshot”. This is faster and easier
How to Take Screenshot With the Snipping Tool
The Windows Snipping Tool is a built-in app used for taking the screenshots of your screen. You can open it by typing “Snipping” in the search box, then click on it to open it.
Then press the “New” button to take a screenshot directly.
You can press the drop down button beside the “New” button to view more options of capturing your screen and then select the one you would like to use.
Then it will list out 4 different options you can use to take a screenshot.
- Free-form Snip: This is used to take a screenshot of a particular shape you drew with the scissor or cutting tool.
- Rectangular Snip: This is used to take a screenshot of particular area which you can adjust and it is usually in a square or rectangle shape.
- Window Snip: This is used to take a screenshot of a particular active window.
- Full-screen Snip: This is used to take a screenshot of the entire screen of your computer.
Then after selecting any options you like, then click, draw, or drag on the window or screen you wish to capture. Then the snipping tool will capture it and it will open it in a window whereby you can use to save and edit it.
Using a third-party app
There are many third-party apps for taking screenshots on the internet and we are going to show you how to use a particular called PicPick’s.
PicPick’s is a free software that gives you the advanced features to have more control over taking screenshots. You can download it form here. Click on the free download to download it for free. So in case you want more features you can buy it from there.
Then install PicPick as would when installing a software and then open it. So you will see menu of different options to capture. Selecting “Scrolling Window” will let you capture a Window a scrolling windows i.e it captures the full window regardless of the scrolling bar and rather than just the static version of the window.
Note: Once you install PicPick, it will change your computer’s key commands for screenshots. So to check the key commands for it click on the “Show hidden icons” arrow at the bottom right corner of the screen.
Then click on PicPick’s icon.
Now select “Program Options”
Then click on “Hot keys” at the left-hand menu.
So you can see the default key commands, now that you’ve installed PicPick.
I hope with the above ways you can easily capture screenshot in less than a minute with no effort