Since it’s the smaller type, it means I’m going to need to use a two-key sequence of Function + the key, so in this case it’d be Function+PrtScr. See what we want? It’s labeled “Insert”, but in smaller type it says “PrtScr”. More interestingly, when combined with the slick Microsoft Paint program, you can also quite easily paste the image into the app, tweak it as desired, and save it to your disk.įirst off, look on your keyboard, you’ll doubtless find a key similar to: Turns out that it does actually do something: it takes a copy of what’s on your screen and saves it in the copy/paste buffer, meaning that you could then, for example, paste the image directly into a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation. Yup, the one that seems to accomplish absolutely nothing when you press it. The trick is to understand the PRTSCR button on your keyboard. Then you can email it to someone, incorporate it into a document, whatever.
On the other hand, with a little bit of effort, it’s quite possible to capture what’s on your Windows screen and drop it into a graphics editor, then take that image and either crop it, resize it or simply save it as a file on your hard drive. As someone who spends a lot of time on a Macintosh system where capturing the screen to a file is as easy as a three key combination (Command-Shift-3) and capturing a selection or subset of a screen is Command-Shift-4, I’m always amazed that there isn’t a similar capability in Windows that would make it braindead simple to save what you’re seeing on the screen to a file.