computer idiot [needs help doing a screen capture]

I’m new with this fancy adding machine. Can anyone tell me how to do a screenshot? Thanks in advance.

Assuming Windows XP.

Run PAINT and minimize.
Start, Programs, Accesories, Paint.

When you are ready for your screen shot, press CONTROL PRINT SCREEN.

Bring up Paint, click Edit, Paste.

I have no idea if i’m doing it right but its not working.

Ill try again tomorrow thank you though

First things first: Do you see the “print screen” button? It may say something like “prt sc” or “prnt scrn”.

Added some description to the thread title.

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

There’s no need to hit control to use the print screen button. Hit the Print Screen button alone and then try to paste the image into Paint.

You’re doing it wrong then! :slight_smile: I’ve just tried it and it worked perfectly. Yay, ya live and ya learn. God, I love the Dope sometimes.

Just wanted to add that if you only want to take a screenshot of the active window, as opposed to the entire desktop, you can do ALT+Print Screen.

By George, He’s right. :slight_smile:

I love the 'Dope.

I’ve found that a free piece of software called “Screen Hunter” makes screen captures of all or a part of the screen to be extremely easy. It can be downloaded from wisdom-soft.com, and, as I said, can be had in a free version. I use it all the time.

Another software that may help is MWSnap from here

If you are running Windows XP, print screen, then either paste into paint, or another image editing program like IrfanView. (Which is free, and very user friendly.) Don’t forget to save. :slight_smile:

Also, if you’re putting the screen shot in a Word document or Outlook email, you can paste it directly after using PrintScreen (or Alt+PrintScreen). You don’t necessarily need to paste it into Paint first and save.

(I’m a software developer and often get emails from users with a screen shot of an error message they’re getting. One user will consistently do the following: use Alt+PrintScreen to capture just the error message, then he will paste it into Paint, take a screen shot of the Paint screen, save THAT in Paint, convert it to black and white, and then paste it into Outlook. Dude, just paste the error message into Outlook!)

Thanks all. I still had to get my daughter to show me how but mission accomplished.

Just to note: on my keyboard, ctrl-printscreen does “Insert” (or absolutely nothing in most modern software). This Microsoft keyboard has a doublesized delete key, so they removed the Insert key from that little group and put it under the printscreen key.

And it handles pretty much every audio and visual extension there is (you do need the plugins though).

In the options menu of IfranView there’s Capture/Screenshot which will do all the work for you (capture, name and save), with either a hot key or multiple captures with a time delay, in a number of file formats (jpg, bmp, png, gif, tif, raw, etc).

I’m currently using it to teach my brother how to use a new program. Using the multi capture with a .5 second delay to capture every thing I’m doing on screen, then converting the slide show into a stand alone executable, Irfan Skiljan is a minor god.

CMC +fnord!

I’m late to the party, but I’m a real fan of the Faststone screen capture program. It went to pay-for-use, but here’s the last freeware version, which I love.

http://321download.com/LastFreeware/page4.html#FastStone%20Capture

Simple to use, all the options I need (full window, freehand rectangle capture, etc), small, fast, and has a simple drawing/text tool that lets me circle, draw lines, add labels to pics for quick, notated screen grabs. Not bloatware.

I’ll second the use of IRfanview. Great program.

FastStone is too cool… Thanks