HOW TO TAKE SCREEN SHOTS

There are a couple of basic ways to take screen shots. One is to use a screen capture program and the other is to use the “Print Screen” / Clip Board method.

CAPTURE PROGRAM

The best method is to use the capture program. I like PaintShop Pro because you can capture an unlimited number of pictures and then simply edit them, resize them and save them to different formats all within the same application. The capture function can be customized to almost any keystroke combination or you can even program a joystick button for screen capture. PaintShop Pro is available as shareware on the various download sites or it can be purchased at various retail stores. I am sure that there are other graphics programs that also do well so check around.

PRINT SCREEN KEY

The method that is on every WIN 9X computer is the “Print Screen” / Clipboard technique. The print screen key is next to the “F12” key on most keyboards. Just hitting the “Print Screen” key will capture the current complete screen to the clipboard. Using the “ALT” key along with the “Print Screen” key will capture the active window only. Caution: every time you hit the “Print Screen” key you replace what was previously on the clipboard with the new data. So you can only take 1 shot and then must save it before you take another.

SAVING YOUR PRINT SCREEN DATA

Here we use the Paint application that comes with all WIN 9X computers.

1. Open the Paint Application
2. Do “Edit” then “Paste”. You may see a message that the clipboard data is too large for the default Paint bitmap setting. Accept the option to enlarge the bitmap.
3. You will now see the captured screen shot.
4. Now save the screen shot by doing “File” – “Save as” and then type in a file name with the .jpg extension. Example: TestPic.jpg. The jpg file extension gives the best compression / clarity tradeoff for pictures to be sent by email or published on the web.

That’s it….go take some screenshots.