taking, saving, and importing screen shots
(updated 28 Feb 2009, 10:07am)
A screen shot is a picture of your computer screen, in whole or in part. For example, a few screen shots I have used on my blog:
Screen shots are helpful when you need to incorporate what you see on web pages into essays, blogs, videos, and other documents you are creating. As with most things, Macs and PCs do this in slightly different ways.
Taking and Saving Screen Shots on a Mac
To take a screen shot of a Mac, hold down at the same time:
SHIFT + Command Key + 4
The Command Keys, also known as the Open Apple keys, are to the right and left of the Spacebar, and look something like this:
This will bring up a cursor that looks like a large + sign. Move the cursor to the top left of the area of the screen you want to capture. Click, hold, and drag the cursor over the entire area. Release the click. You may hear a sound that sounds like a camera shutter.
An image will automatically be saved to your desktop (or wherever the default save is on your computer), called Picture #.png.
Taking and Saving Screen Shots on a PC
To take a screen shot on a PC press the PRINT SCREEN button. The PRINT SCREEN button is located in the upper right of most PC Keyboards, to the right of the F12 key, and amongst these keys:
This will save a copy of the image on your screen to your clipboard (a virtual space on PCs that hold copied items). In order to save it to your computer, we need to do a few things. First, open Microsoft Paint (included in all PCs with Windows XP and Vista), by going to:
Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Paint
In Microsoft Paint, go to View –> Paste. The image will appear. Go to File –> Save As. In the Save As window, select the location where you want the file to be saved, name the file, select .GIF from the Save As Type pull-down menu, and click Save.
Adding Screen Shots to Various Applications
Microsoft Word
To add the picture to a Word document, go to Insert –> Picture –> From File, and select the picture. Click on the image to activate the Picture toolbar or double-click on the image to activate the Format Picture window. Or, if the image does not need to be edited, after the screen shot is taken in Mac and PC, open Word and press CTRL + V to paste in the image. The image will appear.
Wordpress.com Blogs
In Add Post screen, click the Add Image icon directly to the right “Upload/Insert,” and select your image from your computer.
BlogHarbor Blogs (IAOC Blog)
In the Post Article screen, click on the image icon and follow instructions to select an image from your computer
Windows Movie Maker
With Tasks activated, click Import Pictures. Or, go to File –> Import Into Collections. Once imported, drag the image into the Video Track.
Editing your Screen Shot
Unless you have access to a desktop photo editing application (like Photoshop or Fireworks) and are comfortable using it, I recommend using the fun, easy, free, and useful online application called Picnik to edit your screen shots (or, try any of these 10 way cool online editors). On Picnik (or any of the others) you can edit, crop, add text, boxes, and many other things to your screen shot, then re-save the edited image to your computer so that it can be used later.
If you are not concerned with having as much precision in your editing, you can use Word to edit and crop down the image. To edit and crop in Word, use the following steps:
- After the screen shot is taken in Mac and PC, open Word. On a PC press CTRL + V to paste in the image. The image will appear. On a Mac, got to Insert –> Picture –> From File and select the image.
- Click 1 time on the image, which will bring up the Imaging toolbar (in the Mac, it will be in the Formatting Palette).
- Edit the image using the Crop and Wrapping features in the toolbar or formatting palette.
Adding Screen Shots to Various Applications
Microsoft Word
To add the picture to a Word document, go to Insert –> Picture –> From File, and select the picture. Click on the image to activate the Picture toolbar or double-click on the image to activate the Format Picture window. Or, if the image does not need to be edited, after the screen shot is taken in Mac and PC, open Word and press CTRL + V to paste in the image. The image will appear.
Wordpress.com Blogs
In Add Post screen, click the Add Image icon directly to the right “Upload/Insert,” and select your image from your computer.
BlogHarbor Blogs (IAOC Blog)
In the Post Article screen, click on the image icon and follow instructions to select an image from your computer
Windows Movie Maker
With Tasks activated, click Import Pictures. Or, go to File –> Import Into Collections. Once imported, drag the image into the Video Track.
Using Third-Party Applications for Screen Shots
There are several free applications that facilitate taking screen shots. I suggest using Jing which also allows you to take screen captures (videos of work you are doing on your computer). It is free and PC and Mac compatible.
To take a screen shot using Jing, select the area of the screen you want to use, and then click the Image button. A window will pop up giving you some editing option. Select the Save Icon and save it to your computer.
If you are a Firefox user, you can download and install the Picnik Firefox Plug-in, This plug-in allows you to take a screen shot and send it directly to your Picnik account (see below for description of Picnik). This video explains (rather too quickly) the process:
If you are using Firefox but want more flexibility with your screen shot options (and are not wedded to Picnik), the Screengrab plug-in is an easy and effective way to take screen shots. (H/T @aheartofstars)
