On your Windows keyboard there's a key named "Print Screen". If you're like me you've pressed this key and noted that it doesn't seem to do anything. Well, actually it does do something. It captures an image of whatever is on your computer screen and sends that image to the clipboard.
What's the clipboard? It's a program that lives on Windows systems which holds information temporarily when you tell it to. When you hit the "Print Screen" key, you're telling your computer to save an image of whatever is on your screen to the clipboard, and Windows does just that.
So, now the computer has captured the image what good does that do you when you can't see it? Now, you need software. I'll take a minute and talk about software.
There are lots of photo/graphics editing softwares out there. Your computer system may even have come with one or more installed. It doesn't matter which one you use but if you don't already have one you like there are two excellent freeware choices out there. The two programs I'm talking about are named "IrfanView" and "XnView" and they are both incredibly powerful editors. I much prefer Xnview for working with jpeg images while IrfanView is great for gif images.
Visit the XnView website. Visit the IrfanView website.
Assuming you've hit the "Print Screen" key and are ready to proceed:
To retrieve a screenshot with XnView, open the software, click on "File" and then click on "Import Clipboard. Your screenshot will appear in XnView.
To retrieve a screenshot with IrfanView, open the software, click on "Edit" and then click on "Paste". Your screenshot will appear in Irfanview.
Most software will have the "Paste" selection under the "Edit" tab, but if you can't find a another way to retrieve the image, try right clicking in the working area of the software's window and left clicking on "Paste" in the right-click menu.
Screenshots made by Windows are created in the bitmap format. Bitmaps can be very high quality images but they aren't the best type of images to use on a webpage or in an email because their file sizes can be quite large. Either software will permit you to save the image in another format by clicking on "Save As" and selecting the format you wish from the drop down menu. First direct your computer to the folder where you wish to save the image, then, at the bottom center of the "Save As" window, you'll see a rectangular text box with the image format in it and a little down-pointing arrowhead on the right side of the box. Click on the down-pointing arrow and a menu list drops down.
XnView "Save as" dialog:
Irfanview "Save as" dialog:
Scroll (if necessary) to locate, and click on, the desired format, type in a file name that suits you, and click on "Save". That's it. You've changed the image to a different format.
You'll notice that the cursor appears in the screenshots I've taken for this tutorial. The cursor doesn't show in screenshots taken with the "Print Screen" key. To add the cursor to your screenshots, you need software. To take the screenshots I used in this tutorial (and all my tutorials) I've found a terrific freeware program called "ScreenHunter". The company has more sophisticated, shareware, versions of their software but the freeware version of Screenhunter is more than adequate for my needs.
Visit ScreenHunter's web site
This tutorial, by Don Crowder, posted on June 20, 2004
Update: May, 2008
The most recent version of Screenhunter is still a good tool but it has become a fairly aggressive adware application. With some effort you can "tweak" it down to a useful tool without so much extra, unneeded stuff but, if you don't care to go to that much trouble, Irfanview has the built-in ability to take screenshots or you'll find a multitude of choices at Freeware Home.