How to take a screen shot or screen capture
Ever need to show a friend or colleague what you see on your computer screen?
Often when we try to explain what we see on our screen to a friend or colleague, a lot gets lost in the translation, and because of all the variables involved in viewing websites like different browsers, screen resolutions, monitor sizes and preferences etc, it can become a frustrating excercise.The old saying 'A picture is worth a thousand words' has never been more appropriate than in
this situation. If only you could send a picture of what's on your screen to your friend/web developer/colleague so they
understand exactly what you're talking about.
These images of your computer screen are also known as screen captures, screen shots, screen
grabs etc. So instead of wrestling with your video camera, digital camera or polaroid hard copy, you can achieve
this with the press of a button. To simply create a screen capture on your Windows PC, press the PrtScn (Print
Screen) button on your keyboard. On most PC's it's located on the top row of keys 3rd from the left. (See Figure 1).
Figure 1
To retrieve and open the image you just created, it is recommended to use a professional image editing program, however, most graphics programs will do the job. In this tutorial, we will be using the Paint program. This program is included with all Windows operating systems from Win98 to WinXP.
Taking a screen shot
Lets assume you're discussing a website with your web developer over the phone and it just doesn't look right to you, or you have an error message that keeps coming up that you can't decipher. This is when you would take a screen shot and send it to him/her to show exactly what you see.We'll take a screen shot of Gordon Design
Figure 2:
Firstly, press the PrtScn button.
Although it may seem as though nothing has happened, the PC
has actually worked it's magic and taken a photo of your screen. On Macs, the key sequence is Command (apple) Shift
3, and the cool thing about Macs is that you get a camera shutter sound when the screen shot is taken.To view the image you just created, open your image editor. If you don't have one, don't worry Microsoft has included one with the Windows Operating System - it's called Paint, and can be found in the Accessories Menu.
Go to: Start/All Programs/Accessories/Paint and click on Paint to launch the application. When the program opens, click on Edit on the tool bar, then on Paste voila! - now you should see an image of what you just saw on your screen (See Figure 2).
You'll need to save this image where it will be easy to find. A good place to save it would be on your desktop for easy access.
Tip
Crop your screenshot to only the relevant visual information required (See Figure 3) then select copy to from the Edit menu and save the image to your desktop. You can now attach and send it in an email.Figure 3:
I hope you find this helpful, it should improve the communication when you have a problem with your website or you want to show a comlex error message without retyping it or labouring over an explanation.