making screen shots

So this might not be the most useful technique for bunches of people, but it’s super cool nonetheless.

A screen shot is exactly what it sounds like – a snapshot of the screen as you see it. To “take” a screen shot, simply hold the Ctrl key and press the Print Scrn key. It will likely seem like nothing happened, but the computer has that image on its clipboard. The image can be pasted into any Office program that allows pictures to be imported. (These include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Publisher.) Once pasted into the program, the image can be edited just the same as any other image – cropped, re-sized, given borders and shading, etc.

So when might you use this? When teaching someone not-so-computer-savvy how to do something in a program, or when showing someone where something is on a website. You could just take a couple of screen shots, paste them into a Word document, and send the thing off as an attachment in an email, or print it out to give to someone.

So, say for example I would like to show my friend how to save in Word 2007 so that the document will be compatible with previous versions of Word. I simply go into Word 2007 and click to save. When the options menu opens up, I take a screen shot. (In this case, Ctrl+Alt+Print Scrn captures just the menu box, eliminating the need for cropping.) I paste it into Word, then send the document to my friend via email. In my email, I write, “You want this highlighted option.” The deal is done!