Windows Users: Capture Your Screen with the Windows Snipping Tool!

This is a tool I use almost every-single-day, and multiple times most days.

If you are creating instructional handouts, webpages, moodle classes, etc., it is likely at some point you will want to get an image of a portion of your screen (often called a "screenshot."). There are many ways to get screenshots (take a look at this blog post 8 Ways to Take Screenshots in Windows 10 for ideas. Macintosh users, here is a blog post for you!).

One of the easiest ways to get a screenshot if you are using Microsoft Windows is to use the Windows Snipping Tool because it is built into Windows!  Because the Snipping Tool comes with Windows you know you will have access to it on any Windows computer whether or not you have other screen capture tools installed.

The snipping tool is an easy way to capture a section of the computer screen. Like all screen captures, you can then modify and use these screen captures to enhance your handouts, blogs, websites...whatever you want to do!

There are two ways to use the snipping tool, the super-easy way, and the harder, but still pretty-easy way!

Snipping Tool: The Super-Easy Way

1. Have whatever you want to screen capture visible on the screen.
   
   
2. Press the windows key+shift+S key. You don't need to try to press them all together. Press the windows key, hold it down, and press the shift key, hold it down, and press the S key. Let go of all the keys.
   
   
   
   
   
3. The screen will darken and the cursor will be a "plus sign."
   
   
4. Click and drag the "plus" to make a rectangle to capture some/all of the screen. 
   
   
5. When you let go of the mouse, everything inside the rectangle has been screen-captured and put on the clipboard.  You can now go to any program and paste the screen capture from the clipboard.  (Tip: you can use CTRL-V as a shortcut to paste.)

Snipping Tool: The Harder, But Still Pretty-Easy Way

You have more control over your screen capture if you go into the snipping tool application on your Windows computer.

1. Go to the Windows Start menu, scroll down to Windows Accessories, and select Snipping Tool (you can also find the snipping tool in Windows 10 by typing snipping tool in the search box next to the Start menu.)
   
   
2. Click New to select the part of the screen you want to capture. 
   
   
   
   
3. Click and drag the "plus" to indicate the part of the screen you want to capture.
   
   
4. Save your screen capture by selecting File--Save As. The default is to save your image as a PNG file, but you can also change the save type to GIF or JPG file format.
   
   In addition to saving your screen captures, using the snipping tool application allows you to change the Mode and capture a full window, full screen, or free-form snip. You can also set a delay before the capture starts. For instructions and more information on the features of the snipping tool, go to the Microsoft support page on the snipping tool. 
   
   If you think you are going to be using the snipping tool a lot, you can pin it to the start menu or the taskbar (at the bottom of the screen) by going to Windows Start menu, scrolling down to Windows Accessories, right-clicking on Snipping Tool and then selecting Pin to Start Menu or More and Pin to Taskbar.

Be sure to give it a try!

How might you use the Snipping Tool?