It doesn’t matter to which profession you belong to, taking screenshots on windows always comes in handy; It is because you might find a piece of information that you think could prove to be pivotal for your personal or professional growth, a watermarked photo that requires you to pay or sign up for it to download, or anything that you could use as evidence for your statement.
It doesn’t stop here, there can be plenty of more reasons leading you to take a screenshot on windows; and dear, if you stand unaware while in a dire state of capturing your windows screen, you’ll not only lose a prolific opportunity to contain the treasure but your chances of coming across the same treasure again.
Therefore, allow me to walk you through these five easiest techniques of taking a screenshot on windows, enabling you to capture the right things at the right time, and with the right technique. Also, you don’t have to download any third-party application or software for these techniques to run, they come built-in with the windows and are easier enough that you might not find the need to use all of them.
Because each of them is so simple that if you stick to one out of these five, you’ll forget that you learned four more. With some of these techniques, you’d be able to capture the entire screen or window, while some of them allow you to capture a particular piece of a window, a freeform or rectangular screenshot, and the entire screen as well.
Anyways, let’s have a comprehensive look at each of those five techniques, and introduce you to your long-sought technique on how to screenshot on windows.
How to Screenshot on Windows Using Win-Key + Prt Scr-Key
Out of all five techniques, this is the most balanced technique of taking a screenshot on windows. It’s not because I use it, but because it saves the screenshot automatically into the screenshot folder located in the pictures.
Your screen going dim for a while and regaining the brightness is how you will be able to recognize if the screenshot has been taken after you have pressed the respective keys.
The keys, however, can be located in the image below, and they are mostly found in the same places in almost every keyboard, except for a few, but can be traced easily upon looking.
You’ll have to press both the keys at the same time for the windows to take the screenshot. However, upon pressing the Prt Scr-Key only will happen the next technique that has its perks. And you do know what will happen if you press the Win-Key only.
However, this technique is most effective when you often have to screenshot the entire screen or windows, but if you want to edit it before saving, just read the next approach to screenshot on windows.
How to Screenshot on Windows using PrintSC Key Only?
The second technique of taking a screenshot on windows in the list is by pressing the Prt Scr-key only.
Doing so will allow you to capture the entire screen but this time it won’t save it automatically into a folder. Instead, it will keep it copied into the clipboard as long as you don’t copy anything else.
To access the screenshot captured through this technique, you only have to go to an application such as Microsoft Word, Google docs, etc., and press Ctrl + V, it’ll paste the screenshot on the page, allowing you to keep going with your project or assignment flawlessly.
Read More: How to Turn on Google Docs Dark Mode
Also, pasting the screenshot on Microsoft Paints or any other related application will allow you to edit, crop, and colorize the image as per your preference. After you are done, you can save the newer version of the file to your desired location.
This technique turns out pretty handy with the screens that lose their content as soon as you press a single key or a combination of keys using your keyboard.
Not to forget, the Prt Scr-key can also be used to execute the screen snipping tool (which is the next technique in the list); to do so, you’ll only have to open settings, search for ‘ease of access’ > Keyboard, and there you’ll find a toggle awaiting your click to replace the respective key’s action.
How to Screenshot on Windows using Screen Snip Tool?
Till here, we have learned to take screenshots on windows using the Win-Key + Prt Scr-Key, and Prt Scr-Key only. And now is the time to learn a technique that has been with Windows since its predecessor, Win Vista. That technique, however, is named the Screen Snip Tool.
Back with Win Vista, this tool wasn’t as smart and functioning as it is with today’s windows; which is why I have picked this as one of the simplest techniques of taking a screenshot on windows. But before we proceed with using the tool, let’s learn what this tool does.
With the screen snip tool, you can take screenshots, that’s obvious, but what isn’t obvious is you can take them in multiple ways such as Rectangular, free-form, a single window, or the entire screen. It doesn’t end here, the tool also allows you to set a delay timer from multiple ranges before taking a screenshot.
Now that you know what the tool does, let’s get to the main part, the part that describes how you do all that.
Starting with finding the tool and opening it, you’ll first have to press the Win-Key, and type in these two keywords, as shown in the pictures below:
(Note that typing either of them will return with the tool as result.)
Snipping Tool
As you can see in the pictures above, both the keywords return with the tool as the result. Now when you have searched for the tool, and eventually found it, click on it or press enter to open, and there you’ll see a five-option ribbon right below the title bar, as shown in the picture below:
If you don’t want a mode-specific screenshot, you can just proceed with clicking on ‘new’ and click and drag on the gray area that appears after you have clicked on the button to take the screenshot.
Otherwise, click on ‘mode’ and select the model most suitable for the type of screenshot you seek. As illustrated below, you can choose from free-form snip, rectangular snip, window snip, and full-screen snip.
Note that if you click on the full-screen snip, it’ll immediately capture the entire screen and show it to you in a new window.
As discussed prior, the snipping tool also allows you to set a delay before taking a screenshot, you can do that by clicking on the delay button in the ribbon, and it’ll show a list of different time ranges as shown below:
Now if you’d like to select a timer, you can do that; and if not, you can move ahead with taking your desired form of screenshot right away. But, be informed that the screenshot you’ll take won’t be saved into the screenshot folder. Instead, it’ll be copied to your clipboard, which you can paste on a program like Microsoft Paints, Word, Google docs, etc.
Moreover, the screen snip tool will also offer you a handful of options to edit the screenshot in the first immediate window (see below) after you have captured the screen. From there you can save it as a file, print it, and email it.
How to Screenshot on Windows using Game Bar?
A game bar is a feature in windows that most gamers or computer enthusiasts know about. But not anymore since you are reading the guide, and apart from taking screenshots only, you’ll also know the hacks you can pull off with windows’ very own gaming tray.
First of all, let’s get to the way you can access the game bar. It is quite simple, you’ll only have to press Win-Key + G, and that’s it, the game bar will pop up on your screen out of nowhere. And as it pops up, it should look something like this:
In the game bar, from the left, you can see a camera icon (that’s the icon we are concerned with), clicking on the icon will take a screenshot without the game bar, and will save the photo in the screenshots folder located in Pictures.
Other icons range from recording the last 30 seconds, starting a new recording, and turning the mic on or off while the recording is taking place. The game bar happens to be way useful when you are gaming, teaching, conducting an online session, and want to control the volume, graphics, recording, streaming, etc. So if you didn’t know, and next time you get engaged in these things, make sure you try this handy trick to maintain the momentum.
How to Screenshot on Windows using Snip & Sketch?
The last technique of taking a screenshot on windows in this guide is by using the snip & sketch application or tool that, like others, comes built-in with windows. This tool resembles a lot with the snipping tool we walked through back in the third technique. But since I am listing it here, there must be a difference (described below) between the two.
Anyways, let’s start with the opening. There are two methods of opening the snip & sketch tool. One is by typing the tool’s name after you have pressed the Win-Key. The second method, however, is by pressing the shortcut keys to the respective tool, i.e., Win-Key + Shift-Key + S-Key.
Upon typing the tool’s name in windows’ search bar, it’ll show you the tool as the result, click or enter to open, and you’ll see a program window like this:
In the image above, you can see a button on the top left corner named ‘new.’ sliding in the clicking this button will open a dropdown, allowing you to select from snip now, snip in 3 seconds, and snip in 10 seconds as shown below.
If you select snip now, the snip & sketch’s window will disappear and your screen will go dim, sliding in a centered small bar in the middle-top of the screen. However, the same will happen if you click on the other two options from the dropdown. The only difference being the screen will go dim after 3 or 10 seconds respectively.
The bar consists of the same four options as you saw in the snipping tool such as rectangular snip, free form snip, window snip, or a full-screen snip. And after you have taken the screenshot in the desired shape, it will open the disappeared snip & sketch’s window back, but this time with the screenshot you took.
In the picture above, you can see multiple options in the ribbon, just below the title bar. On the left, there are options like new, open a new file, undo, and redo that I have already explained above. But in the center, you can see different pen or tip icons that you can use to draw, edit, and erase the content in the screenshot.
The first finger icon, when enabled, lets you type using the touch of your screen. The second one, however, represents a ballpoint, allowing you to write over the screenshot the same way as a ballpoint does. The third, however, is a pencil, the fourth is a highlighter, the fifth is an eraser, the sixth open a ruler, and the last is an image crop.
All of them have their own perks, allowing you to edit or write over the captured screen whatever you want to write or draw. You can also zoom, save, copy, and share the image as soon as you are done with the editing. In short, a great way to annotate your documents or pictures.
However, if you access the snip & sketch tool using the shortcut keys, i.e., Win-Key + Shift-Key + S-Key, your screen will immediately go dim, and the small centered bar will slide in from the middle-top of the screen. The rest of the process, after you have taken a screenshot, will be the same as with opening the snip & sketch tool.
Final Thoughts
These are, as per my knowledge, the most effective and easiest techniques to screenshot on windows. There are, however, many third-party applications such as Snagit, Fireshot, Lightshot, Tiny take, PicPick, etc. that, alongside taking screenshots, allow you to generate GIFs, capture, or screenshot the entire pages, not windows, but full pages, and much more. However, they will cost you a decent amount of money, which you may or may not want to spend.
But if you’d like to stick to taking screenshots only, I’d suggest you stay with these techniques and bring them to your routine use.