Different ways to take screenshots on Windows

After reading this title many of you guys thought that "Whats in it ? We already knew how to take screenshot on Windows". Aha, we all know that basic one that is by pressing the prt sc(print screen) key and opening the MS Paint and pressing Ctrl+V. 

You guys were thinking "Thats simple ! Then why this article...???😩" 

Do you know, When we started using a MacBook Air, we quickly discovered that cmd + shift + 3 takes a screenshot of the entire screen and cmd + shift + 4 lets you select a portion of the screen for screenshots.

We’ve been using Windows for decades and found ourselves wondering why Microsoft’s platform doesn’t have a similar shortcut. Capturing the full screen and pasting it in MS Paint seems like an overly clumsy way to take screenshots. That led to some quick searches through help and guess what... there are much better ways to take screenshots on Windows. 

Note that these methods will work in Windows XP or newer versions of the OS, except the Snipping Tool, which was only introduced in Windows Vista.

Image Source - Geek Winky

So here are the following ways to capture a screenshot on your Windows System :

1. Saving a screenshot of th e entire screen to file

How to save a screenshot of the entire screen directly to file in Windows:

• Press Windows key + Print Screen. This will save a screenshot in the Pictures library on your computer.

• To find the screenshot, launch Explorer and in the left pane click Pictures. Open the Screenshots folder here to find your screenshot saved.

2. Saving a screenshot to the clipboard

The simplest way to take a screenshot is to follow these steps:

• Press Print Screen which copies the screen to the clipboard.

• Now, open MS Paint, Word or any other app that can deal with images.

• Press Ctrl + v to paste the screenshot in the app.

• You can now save this file anywhere you like.

3. Taking a screenshot of the open window

If you just want to take a screenshot of an app or window you’ve opened, follow these steps:

• Click on the app you want to take a screenshot. Make sure it’s in the foreground and not behind other open apps.

• Press alt + Print Screen.

• Open MS Paint or any application of your choice.

• Press ctrl + V.

• This will paste the screenshot of the open window in Paint.

• You can save the screenshot anywhere you like.

4. Taking a screenshot of a part of the screen

This is where you use the Windows Snipping Tool. Follow these steps to take a screenshot of any arbitrary part of the screen:

• Open Snipping T ool. It’s under Start menu > All programs > Accessories. You can also open Start menu and simply use the search box to find it.

• Now click the down arrow next to New.

• Select Rectangular Snip or Free-form Snip. The former lets you capture a rectangular screenshot and the latter lets you draw any shape on screen and takes a screenshot of that part.

• Once you’ve done that, you can use the Snipping tool to annotate the screenshot if needed and save it to your PC.

This last method allows you to quickly select a portion of the screen that you need for your work, saving you a lot of time in the process.

That’s how to take screenshots on Windows. These are simple methods but we are doing extra effort till we not know about this..

Hope you guys like this article...

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Article By : Atul Agrawal, Sr. Technical Writer @ GeekWinky