Capturing screenshots in Windows

When you encounter an error running an application, and you need to contact technical support, you’d be of more help if you know how to take a picture of your PC’s screen, giving technicians at the other end of the line a better idea of your problem and allowing them to troubleshoot it faster.

The common way of taking a screenshot, at least in Windows XP, involves copying the entire screen to the clipboard by pressing the Print Screen key on your keyboard, or copying an active window by clicking Alt+Print Screen. You then open up Paint, paste the screenshot, and then save the file in your desired format. If you know how, you can crop the screenshot to show only the relevant details.

The above process is simplified in Windows Vista, which includes the Snipping Tool for easy screen capture. The Snipping Tool allows you to set the area, the image type, and annotate and mark up your screen captures with text. This tool has all the features that commercial-quality screen capture programs have, and means that you don’t have to acquire a separate screen capture utility if you’re using Windows Vista.

If you don’t want the hassle that comes with making screen captures in Windows XP, you can use screen capture programs, which give you more precise control over your screenshot. There are a lot of commercial and free screen capture programs on the market, many downloadable over the Internet. Many of these programs also run on Windows Vista, so if you’re not satisfied with the Snipping Tool, you can also take a look at them.

The de facto standard among commercial programs, preferred by technical writers and other people who regularly need to take screen captures, is SnagIt. Comprising Snagit’s competition is HyperSnap and a slew of shareware programs.

Freeware screen capture utilities with features that even rival those of their commercial counterparts abound on the market. My favorites include the Vista-compatible FastStone Capture, Gadwin Printscreen and MWSnap, which is a standalone executable, and thus, does not need to be installed on your PC.

If you’re a professional technical writer, it would be best to go with SnagIt, regardless of your OS. But if you’re just an ordinary user who only needs to capture screenshots from time to time, and you’re using Windows XP, the free FastStone Capture will do the trick. If you’re already on Windows Vista, the Snipping Tool is enough.

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