Screen grabs (also called screen shots, screen capture etc.) are really handy for a number of different business and communication purposes. Once you start using them, you’ll be doing so all the time!
Use a screen grab to:
- Make B2B or B2C communication easier.
- Illustrate training manuals for your employees.
- Help explain technical issues when asking for outside technical assistance.
- Document online supply of service, for customer reports.
- Remind you of good ideas, layout, design you come across online.
- Store memories of your businesses growth and evolution! Capture how your own site looks, and changes, over time. Or capture images of publicity or mentions your business receives online; makes great content for media kits.
How to take a screen grab, in Windows:
- Open whatever it is you want to take a screen grab of on your computer monitor.
- Press the Print Screen button on your keyboard; sometimes named PrtScr, PrtScr or Print Screen Sys Rq [refer image below].
- After pressing this key you generally won’t be offered any indication that anything has happened (which is handy). But your computer will have transferred the screen capture to memory, i.e. the clipboard.
- Open the image editor in Windows called Microsoft Paint. Go to your start menu and look in the accessories folder for paint.
- Then go to the Edit menu and choose Paste – or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V
- In Paint, you can crop the image and draw circles, arrows, whatever on it.
- Go the the File menu and choose Save As to store it in an appropriate folder.
TIP 1: Instead of capturing a grab of your entire computer screen, you can press Alt+PrintScr at the same time which will only capture the active window you have open.
TIP 2: Need to visually explain something quickly? Instead of opening an image edit program, like paint, drop your screen grab straight into an email. Just open a new email window and drop the screen grab in with Ctrl+V.
