There are several reasons why you may want to take a screenshot on your PC. Sometimes you may want to save an image for future reference – for example an important receipt for an item you bought, or you may want to show a friend something interesting from the internet. Whether you’re running Windows 10 or Windows 11, these are some methods to take screenshots on your system.
Using the Print Screen Key
The simplest way to take screenshots in Windows 10 and 11 is to use the Print Screen key on your keyboard. This will take an image of your entire screen and copy it to the clipboard.
1. Press the Print Screen (PrtSc) key. An image of your screen will be copied to the clipboard.
2. Open the program you want to paste the screenshot in for example Paint or Word.
3. Paste the screenshot (using Ctrl + V or left click and paste) and then you can edit the screenshot.
4. You can also automatically save the image to the Screenshots folder (located in your Pictures folder) by pressing Windows Key + Print Screen.
Note: Both Windows 10 and 11 has an option to have the Print Screen key open a screenshot app, (i.e. either Snipping Tool or Snip and Sketch app) when pressed. Use the following guide to access this setting:
- Windows 10: Go to: Start -> Settings -> Ease of Access -> Keyboard -> Print Screen Shortcut.
- Windows 11: Go to: Start -> Settings -> Accessibility -> Keyboard -> Use the Print screen key to open the Snipping Tool
Using the Snipping Tool
The snipping tool was around since Microsoft Vista and has had a somewhat sketchy history, it was marked for ..but eventually became renamed version of Snip and Sketch .. The snipping tool is included with Windows 11, and it can also be downloaded from the app store on a Windows 10 PC. Follow these steps to use the Snipping Tool.
1. Type snipping tool in the search section of your task bar. Alternatively use the shortcut Windows key+ Shift + S to open the app and allow you to choose a snip mode (step 4).
2. From the results, click on the Snipping Tool App.
3. The camera shaped icon is selected by default for screenshots while the video recorder icon is for screen recordings.
4. Select the type of snip you would like from the snipping mode icon.
A description of each snipping mode is as follows:
- Rectangular – Captures an image of a rectangular area created by dragging the mouse.
- Freeform – Captures the image within a free-form drawing
- Window – Captures an image of the window you clicked on.
- Fullscreen – Captures an image of the full screen
5. If you select, Full screen, for example, a screenshot is automatically taken of the full screen and is shown in the snipping tool app, where it can be edited. You can do annotations, crop and even extract text from the image. Note: the screenshot is also copied to the clipboard.
Using Snip and Sketch – Windows 10 only
Snip and sketch was replaced by the Snipping tool in Windows 11, but it’s still included in Windows 10. Basically it’s the same steps to take screenshots with both apps.
1. Type snip and sketch in the search section of your task bar, then click on the Snip and Sketch app.
2. Click on the New button in the top left corner.
3. Select the mode you want:
- Rectangular – Captures an image of a rectangular area created by dragging the mouse.
- Freeform – Captures the image within a free-form drawing
- Window – Captures an image of the window you clicked on.
- Fullscreen – Captures an image of the full screen
4. Capture the image you want and edit it using the various options available to annotate and crop.
5. To get more options for editing, open the image in another app like Paint or Paint 3D. To do this, click the three dots to the top right hand corner, then click Open with. You will then get the options to make your selection.
Third party apps
There is also the option of third party apps that can give you more features. I’ll just mention two noteworthy ones that you can check out. First on the list is ShareX which is free and open source and comes with some good features such as:
- Scrolling capture
- Video capture
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Another good screenshot app is ScreenRec. ScreenRec provides some useful features in a free and easy to use screenshot app. Notable features are:
- Simple and fast to use
- Good annotation features
- Video capture
- Free private cloud storage
Conclusion
This article showed three built-in methods on Windows 10 and 11, and also some third party options to take screenshots on your PC. The methods shown were simple to use, and provide the essential features for taking and editing screenshots. The third party apps discussed offered a few more advanced features. Hope you found this article useful. Thanks for reading.
