Window Tips: How to Take a Screenshot

Have you ever wanted to capture an image on your computer screen to a picture file to view later? This is called taking a screenshot and is very simple to do.

Step 1: Locate the Print Screen Key

To take a screenshot, first take a look at your keyboard. Look for the Print Screen key (often abbreviated as "prnt scrn," especially on laptop computers). The Print Screen key is usually located to the left of the Scroll Lock key and somewhere above the Home and Insert keys. However, bear in mind that not all keyboard layouts are exactly the same so the location of the Print Screen key may be different on your keyboard.

Step 2: Save the Screen Image to Clipboard

In order to take a screenshot, press the Print Screen key. This will not actually save your PC screen image to a file but rather it will save it onto your computer's clipboard. In order to view and save the image, the screenshot must be pasted into an image editing program such as Microsoft Paint.

Step 3: Locating and Opening Microsoft Paint

Microsoft Paint (which is installed by default with Windows) will do fine for saving screenshots if you simply want to save the image without doing any advanced editing. To open Microsoft Paint:

1) Click the Start button on your taskbar.

2) Click "All Programs."

3) Scroll to and click "Accessories."

4) Scroll down to "Paint" and click it.

This will open Microsoft Paint and start you off with a new untitled image file.

Step 4: Viewing and Saving Screenshot

To paste your screenshot into Microsoft Paint, you can either click "edit" on the toolbar located at the top of the window and select the "paste" option or just click anywhere on the blank image and press ctrl + v (the Windows shortcut to paste). You should then see your screenshot in the Paint window. To save the image, click "file" from the toolbar and scroll down to save or simply hit ctrl + s (the Windows shortcut to save) and choose the destination folder you want the image to be saved in.

If you want to take a screenshot of only the active window (the window you are currently working with), follow the same procedure but hold the Alt key when you press the Print Screen key.

Third Party Screen Capture Programs

There are also several third-party programs that take screenshots. These programs usually have extra features such as being able to save a screen image directly to a file without having to first paste it in an image editor, quality options, automatic timed screen captures, etc. You can find several free screen capture tools simply by searching for them using any search engine.