Capture the mouse cursor every time, grab a single window and save screenshots automatically
Capture anything with the Snipping Tool
Well, nearly anything. The Snipping Tool has been included with Windows Vista onwards. It will capture screenshots that seem beyond the reach of keyboard shortcuts – meaning specific parts of the screen, or a freehand area.
The Snipping Tool is hidden in different places but one way to launch it on any version of Windows is to press Windows key+R, type snippingtool.exe and press Enter. Click the New button before dragging a rectangle over the part of the screen you want to grab. But have you ever noticed the little down arrow next to this button? Click this instead to access four different ways to capture screens.
Don’t forget the Shift key
If pressing the Print Screen (or PrtScn) button doesn’t seem to work, the secret is that it’s probably the key’s secondary function. That means you need to hold down the Shift key before pressing Print Screen. On a laptop keyboard, you might instead need to hold down the Function (Fn) key before you tap Print Screen. To use your screenshot, just switch to another program and press Control (Ctrl+V) to paste.
Snap a specific window
Want to focus on one program? Limit your screenshot to the current window by holding down the Alt key before tapping Print Screen. Remember to also press Shift or Function if your Print Screen key is the secondary function (see previous tip) – so Alt+Shift+Print Screen or Alt+Function+Print Screen.
Take smartphone and tablet screenshots
Capturing screenshots on Apple iPhones and iPads is easy: hold down the power button (at the top or side) and then press the physical home button. Timing isn’t too important, so you might find it easier to hold down one or other button briefly before tapping the other.
There’s no single method on Android smartphones and tablets but the same power-button-plus-home-button trick works on some. On some Android devices, the home button might be a ‘soft’ button rather than a hardware one – meaning the round icon that’s displayed at the foot of the screen. On others you might need to press the power button and volumedown button at the same time. Timing tends to be more important: aim for a simultaneous press of the two buttons.
If you use a tablet running Windows 8.1/10 then a simultaneous tap of the power button and volume-down might do the job. Otherwise, while it’s fiddly to use on a touchscreen, you can use the Snipping Tool – see the tip above.
Automatically save every screenshot
A great feature of Gadwin PrintScreen (see below) is the ability to save screenshots automatically. To set this up, right-click the PrintScreen icon in the notification area on the taskbar and choose Show Options, or hover your mouse cursor over the blue line on the left of the screen to open PrintScreen’s widget, then click the cog icon. Select Post-Capture Actions on the left and then, in the right-hand pane, tick ‘Save Capture to File’. Choose the image file format from the dropdown menu, then click the ellipsis (three dots) button alongside Capture Folder to choose the save location. Now just snap away, as per the previous tip.
Include the mouse cursor in any screenshot
Pressing Print Screen usually captures the mouse cursor in situ, but not always – and then only for the whole screen. The Alt+Print Screen shortcut ignores the mouse pointer, and the Snipping Tool can’t manage it either. The secret is to use free software like Gadwin PrintScreen – download it from www.snipca.com/19789. It sets itself to be activated by a press of the Print Screen key, and its default is to include the mouse cursor. Just press Print Screen, check the preview and then click the green tick (or press F2) to confirm. Your grab is now in the Windows Clipboard, so just press Ctrl+V to paste it elsewhere. PrintScreen does so much more though, so do read the tip on automatically saving screenshots, right.