How to Screenshot in Windows: Basic & Advanced

by

We are influencers and brand affiliates.  This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.

Many people think that you just snap a picture of your screen and then save it somewhere. This might be the case, but many people don’t know that you can do so much more with a simple tool that comes with your Windows PC called Snipping Tool. However, for the people who just want the simple solution, here:

  1. There should be a button on your keyboard (usually to the right, near the number pad and arrow keys) that says “Print Screen” or “PrtScrn,” or some sort of abbreviation unique to the keyboard itself.
  2. Pull up whatever you want to screenshot.
  3. Press it. (Sometimes the word is above another thing on the same key. If that’s the case, just press Shift+PrtScrn/Print Screen like you would to capitalize a letter).
  4. Your screenshot is taken, it’s just copied right now. We need somewhere to paste it and save it. So open Paint (yes, Microsoft Paint).
  5. Press Ctrl+V. This is also known as the Paste function. It’s just a shortcut – don’t mind the details.
  6. Save your screenshot at the top left.

  1. Navigate to wherever you’re gonna save it in your folder.
  2. Congratulations, you have a screenshot. Boom. Easy. Done.

However! For the people who do want the more advanced version, there is an application called Snipping Tool. For obvious reasons, it’s difficult to screenshot the application with the application, so please allow me to describe it in the best detail that I can. And please note, I’m using Windows 10. If you use a different operating system, that might cause some differences, but it should probably be the same general idea.

  1. Open the start menu at the bottom left of the screen.
  2. Type in either “Cut” or “Snipping Tool” to pull up something that looks a little like this:

  1. Open it.
  2. There should be three buttons at the top of the window called New, Mode, and Delay. There should also be Cancel and Options. To create a new screenshot, press New.
  3. Create a box starting from one of the corners of whatever you want to screenshot, and dragging it to the opposite corner.
  4. To copy the screenshot you have, press Ctrl+C. This is useful for sharing things on social media and the like. I personally use it for Discord, but that’s just me. Just paste it with Ctrl+V afterwards.
  5. To save the screenshot in a folder, navigate to File–>Save As… then select the folder you want, name it, and press Save.

Now, something I find useful is that you can also draw on and edit your screenshots. There’s a pen, a highlighter, and an eraser. Sadly, there is not an undo option, and you just need to use the eraser for that. If you click on the little drop-down arrow next to the pen, it will give you a menu to which you can select the color you want. To have more options with the pen, press Customize in the menu. It will open a window where you can select the Color, Thickness, and Tip of the pen. If you want to erase a mark, just select the eraser and click on the mark you made. It’s a bit of a hassle if you made a lot of marks, but it’s not a big deal if it’s all you have. There’s more you can do with the Snipping Tool, but that’s about all we have time for today. Feel free to experiment on your own time, there’s not much you can do that will mess things up with this tool.

Thanks for reading. Roxie out.

We are influencers and brand affiliates.  This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.