Do you know how to take screenshots?

We love screenshots. They are the means to share conversations, status updates, documents or anything you randomly come across while scrolling through your smartphone. Let's accept it, we all use this feature extensively on smartphones but when it comes to taking screenshots in Windows 10, all we know is to hit the PrtScr button and paste the entire screen in MS paint. In this post, I will explain how can you take good screenshots efficiently using Windows 10 shortcuts.

1. Take a full screenshot

Press the PrtScr button (PrintScreen) on the keyboard. There is no voice or notification shown. There is no way to know whether the shot is taken or not. The screenshot is saved placed in the clipboard. After pressing PrtScr, go to Photoshop, Word, Paint or any photo/document editing app and click on the 'Paste' option (shortcut: Ctrl + V) and your screenshot will be pasted. If you do not want to spend extra time editing and want to save the screenshot directly, instead of pressing PrtScr, press the Windows button + PrtScr on the keyboard. This will save your screen grab to your computer. Go to the Pictures folder on your computer and you will find your screen grab in the Screenshot folder.

2. Screenshot a part of the screen

Click the Windows + Shift + S together. The color of the entire screen will be lighter and the cursor plus will look like a plus sign '+'. Drag the cursor to the part of the screen where you want to take the shot and select the area. Keep the left button pressed and drag the cursor wherever you want it. The color of the screen will be back to normal after you release the left mouse button. This time the shot is copied to clipboard again. Paste it in an editing app and edit it.

3. Snipping tools

For the work we did with Windows + Shift + S, there is a separate application named Snipping Tool. The difference between the two is that after selecting the portion of the shot you want, it is previewed in the sniping tool, while the preview does not appear when you use Windows + Shift + S, it gets pasted directly to the clipboard.

4. Take a screenshot of the active window only

If a lot of windows are open on your screen then just press Alt + PrtScr to take an active window shot and paste it in any editing app. It is interesting to note here that just pressing PrtScr shows a picture of all the windows that appear on the screen, but Alt + PrtScr only captures the active windows.

This brings us to the end of this article. So, these were the shortcuts to take screenshots properly in Windows 10. Being familiar to Windows 10 shortcuts sure saves a lot time and makes life easy for all the couch potatoes out there. Hope you enjoyed reading this post.

Ravi Rao, Digitrovert