Making a Screen Capture

It is often useful to capture what is shown on the computer screen.  In the event something on the computer is not being displayed properly, it can assist technical support personnel to see exactly what it displayed to help with troubleshooting.

When the display of interest is on the screen, press the Print Screen button to save the screen image to the Windows Clipboard.  Under DOS pressing that button would sent the screen image to a printer, but Windows does not work in that fashion.  To verify that the screen has been captured, go to Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Clipboard Viewer.  The Clipboard will be displayed on the screen.

To work with the captured image, it must be converted to a file.  Since all Windows users have Microsoft Paint as a part of Windows, that program can be used to produce the file.  It should be noted that Paint is worth almost exactly what it cost (nothing) but it will work in a rudimentary fashion.

Open Paint by going to Start|Programs|Accessories|Paint.  When the Paint window opens, place the image from the Clipboard into it by pressing Edit|Paste.  A window will advise that the image is larger than the Paint default and ask if the user wishes to have the window resized.  Answer yes and the Clipboard image appears.

The opening cursor is a four-headed arrow which, if the left mouse button is held down, can be used to move the image around the screen.  To save the entire screen image go to File|Save and fill the entries on the 'Save As..." screen.

If only a part of the image is needed, click the rectangular selection tool at the top of the toolbar, shown here:

The cursor changes to a cross.  Start at the upper left corner of the portion of the image of interest and, holding the left mouse button down, drag down and right until the area is select (it will be surrounded by a dashed line).  Release the mouse button.

To save only the selected image click Edit|Copy then click click File|New.  Windows may ask if the changes to the initial image should be saved.  Answer no and a new Paint window will open.  Press Edit|Paste and the saved image will appears.

To save this as a file, click File|Save.  The Save As window appears.  Click the down arrow to the right of the Save as type window and choose the graphics file type to be used.  24-bit Bitmap (.bmp) is the default but this is a very inefficient format, as the files will be very large and not suited for transmission via email.  Either .gif or .jpg is a better choice and after one of those is selected, enter the filename and specify the location on the hard disk to save the image.  Click the Save button and the file will be available on the hard disk for further use.

To see these procedures demonstrated in a viewlet, go here.