Capturing the Computer Screen

On both the Windows and Macintosh platforms, the following techniques allow you to capture portions of your screen to the Clipboard as images. The Clipboard is a temporary location that stores anything that you wish to move or copy by using the Edit, Cut or Edit, Copy commands. You can paste information from the Clipboard into any document as often as you like. The Cut, Copy, and Paste commands appear under the Edit menu of virtually every application.

Windows

To capture an image of the entire screen on a Windows computer, simply press the PrintScreen key on the top row of your keyboard (to the right of the F12 key, labeled "Print Scrn".) To copy an image of the active window only, press Alt + PrintScreen. In much earlier times, this key actually printed (on your printer) the image that was displayed on the screen. With recent versions of Windows, this key copies the screen image to the Clipboard.

Try it!

1. Adjust the screen contents to your liking and then press "Print Scrn". It may seem like nothing has happened, but the screen image has now been captured onto your Windows Clipboard.

2. Open any Windows-based application (i.e. Word, Powerpoint) and select Edit, Paste. You can also select the Paste icon from the standard toolbar.

In the example below (Fig.1), a user needs assistance on how to insert a picture into a Word document. A print screen of a Word document window was captured, showing the necessary menu commands to accomplish this. In addition, the picture toolbar (Fig. 2) was used to "crop" the image, and the drawing toolbar was utilized for adding an arrow and text.

Fig. 1 - Print Screen Example



Fig. 2 - Picture Toolbar

Macintosh

To capture a selected portion of your screen to the Clipboard on a Macintosh computer, you must use a combination of four keys: Apple + Control + Shift + 4.

Try it!

1. Adjust the screen contents to your liking and then press Apple + Control + Shift + 4 key. Your mouse cursor will change from an arrow to a plus sign.

2. Drag the mouse pointer (+) over the area you wish to capture.

3. Release the mouse button. You will hear a little click to indicate that the screen image has been captured to your Clipboard.

4. Open any application (i.e. Word, Powerpoint) and select Edit, Paste. You can also select the Paste icon from the standard toolbar.

You can also capture the entire screen to the Clipboard by pressing Apple + Control + Shift +3.

*Macintosh OS X comes with a Screen Capture utility called SnapzPro. It not only allows you to capture screen shots, but also more complex features that allow you to record actions (keystrokes & voice) as a QuickTime movie! Look in the Applications folder on your Mac HD for the application and documentation.