How to Take a Screenshot on Laptop or Desktop
As a follow up to last months article on screen capture on your phone here is how to capture your screen on your Windows, Mac or Chromebook.
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE to capture that crazy text you received or send the IT guy a picture of what’s going wrong on your device. Knowing how to take a screenshot can save you a lot of explaining. Every operating system has a built-in method of capturing the screen. Some even allow you to capture specific portions or grab a scrolling screenshot. We’ll explain how.
How to Take a Screenshot on a Windows PC
To capture a screenshot on a Windows laptop or desktop computer, press the Print Screen keyboard key (usually abbreviated to Prt Scn or similar). If you only want to grab a screenshot of the active window, press the Alt and Print Screen keys together. Your captured screenshot is copied to the clipboard automatically and you must open Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, or whatever image software you use to paste it so you can edit and save it.
If you just want to capture a portion of the screen in Windows 10 try pressing the Windows, Shift, and S keys together. You can then click and drag to highlight the bit you want and let go to capture it. In earlier versions of Windows you can do the same thing with the Snipping Tool, which is found by clicking Start and typing “snipping tool” in the search bar. Once again, the screenshot is copied to your clipboard for you to paste.
To capture screenshots and automatically save them, press the Windows and Print Screen keys together. Screenshots are saved in a folder titled Screenshots in your Pictures folder.
How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac
To capture a screenshot on a Mac, press the Shift, Command, and 3 keys simultaneously.
If you only want to grab a screenshot of the active window or a specific portion of the screen, press the Shift, Command, and 4 keys together. Press the Spacebar to capture an active window or click and drag to highlight a portion of the screen, then release to capture it.
The screenshots you take save to your desktop. To copy a screenshot to paste it into another app, you must also press the Control key when capturing. For example, to grab your whole screen you must press the Shift, Command, Control, and 3 keys together.
How to Take a Screenshot on a Chromebook
To capture a screenshot on a Chromebook, press the Control (usually abbreviated to Ctrl) and Show Windows (a rectangle with two lines to the right) keys together.
To capture a portion of the screen, press the Shift, Control, and Show Windows keys, click and drag to highlight the bit you want, then let go to grab the screenshot.
The screenshot preview should pop up at the bottom right, and you can copy or annotate it. To find screenshots later, click the Launcher button (the circle at the bottom left corner), then select Files and click Downloads on the left.
Wayne – Geek Monkey Computers Woolgoolga 0490 776 643