Have you ever wished you could provide a visual representation of an error message you are seeing? Or that you could show others at work a neat way to accomplish a task? If you have ever wanted to share what was on your screen you are in luck. In fact the Windows operating system provides a simple way to do just that.
Capturing a screen shot of your PC is a simple process, especially if you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. When you have the window you want to capture, simply make it the active window by clicking on it. You will see the borders of the window darken to let you know it is now the active window.
After the window has been selected, the next step is to press the Alt key and the Print Screen key at the same time. The Alt keys are located on the bottom row of the keyboard, right by the spacebar. There are two of them and either one will do. The Print Screen key is labeled PrtSc and it is located on the top right hand side of the keyboard right past the F1-F12 function keys.
Pressing Alt and PrtSc at the same time will move the screenshot to your clipboard. After it has been placed on the clipboard you can simply open a blank Microsoft Word document or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Once the blank document is open simply click the Edit menu and choose Paste from the drop down menu. Alternatively you can simply click on the Paste button on the toolbar (if there is one), or click Ctrl and V on your keyboard to paste.
No matter which method you choose, you will now see a picture of your screen in your document. From there you can simply save the screenshot as you would any other Word or Excel document. From there you can share the file, email it or use it for troubleshooting.
If you are looking for an even shorter way to share your screen or document an error message you can even paste the screenshot into an email message. Simply use the Alt-PrtSc key combination to capture the screen, open a new email and paste the message into the body of the email. You can then send it to your tech support personnel or share it with a coworker.
As you can see, capturing a screenshot is actually quite easy, and this ability is one of the most powerful features of modern computers. Screenshots can be used for so many purposes, including creating manuals, designing presentations and more.