Windows Tip: Screen Capture

So, you are working on something on your computer, and would really love it if you could take a snapshot of your whole computer screen so that you could save it or send it to someone. Fortunately, this ability is built right in to Windows without any special software needed. Read the full text for the details.

Taking a picture, or snapshot, of your screen is actually quite easy, and there are two variations that we will present here.  The first is to capture everything on your computer monitor, and if you have multiple monitors, everything displayed on all monitors.  Press the "Print Screen" button, normally located in the upper right side of your computer keyboard, sort of near the Scroll Lock and Home/End keys.  The Print Screen button saves a picture of the contents of your screen to your computer's "clipboard".  You can then paste this picture in to almost any program like Microsoft Word or Outlook simply by doing a "Paste" command (keyboard shortcut for paste is Ctrl+v).  If you only want to capture the contents of the currently active window (and not the whole entire desktop), simply hold down the Alt button while pressing Print Screen.