Screen Capture

Capturing Image

You can take a picture of your computer screen very easily with a built-in capture capability. Just hit the 'Print Screen' (Prt Scr) key on your keyboard. It is located above the 'Insert' or 'Home' keys. This puts an image of the entire screen in the Clipboard. Then this image can be pasted into a document (with Word 2000 and newer, you might need to have the program open before you hit Prt Scr for the screen shot to go to the clipboard), or into a photo editor or Paint program -- finally a use for the Paint program! Since you probably don't want an image of the entire screen, hold the 'Alt' key down when you hit 'Print Screen'. Then you will get just the selected window. Putting the image into Paint will let you then save it as a GIF or JPG file.

Cropping Image

Now you probably don't want an image of the entire selected window with it's boarder. If the boarder is OK, remember to size the window before you 'Print Screen.' Then just paste this into the destination document. When I tried to paste this to an email, it would not work. It has to be saved as a file, and then the file can be brought into the email. That is where the Paint program that comes with Windows is used, unless you have a photo editor. Use the Paint program as a last resort.

Usually you will need to crop the image. Use a photo editor if you have one as it can also be used to size the image for it's intended use. Windows comes with a Paint program that can be used to crop the image. Don't try to do this in MS Word as it's capability for this should be dropped into a hole and covered up.

If you must use the Windows Paint program, open it and, if there is not white area showing, click the File menu and then New (File > New). Then Edit > Paste, and you should see the image. You should have a sidebar with tools, if not View > Tool Box.

Now for the cropping, click the rectangle icon in the tool box. Then click the upper left corner of the final image and hold the left mouse button down. Move the cursor to the lower right corner and release. This selects the part of the image you want to save. Go to Edit > Copy to, and select the folder to save the image. It can only be saved as a bitmap (bmp) file. The cropped image can be saved as a jpg from the Paint program by copying it, opening a new project (File > New) and then Save As. The details are left as an exercise for the student. (I've always wanted to say that!)

Freeware

There is a great program I use that will do this whole thing in an instant. It is called MW Snap. Find out about it and other utilities at our club resources web page.

Contributed by Bruce Saunders