Stay with us if you’ve been wondering how to take a screenshot on Windows 10. Who has never found himself preparing a document, a file or even writing an article and wished to know how to place snapshots in these to illustrate a point of view?
We believe that everyone has gone through this moment. Whether it’s time to prepare a complaint or an academic work, the pictures help to make everything easier and more visual.
Imagine a situation where you have to explain to a lot of people how to perform a certain job or how to access a company’s new work tool.
Just by speaking, some may not understand it correctly, but when you offer a visual stimulus the process turns easier and more understandable.
So, improving your knowledge about how to screenshot on Windows 10 is really important. Yes, that’s right!
There is more than one way to do it and we are going to show you here how to perform each one. If you want to know more about it keep reading this article that we have prepared for you.
Table of Contents
How to take a screenshot on Windows 10
What is a screenshot?
A screenshot or print is nothing more than “taking a picture” of a device’s screen to provide an explanation or proof of what you want to show.
This function is widely used on smartphones when you want to select content from a social network that does not allow saving, or when you need to send information from an offline application among other things.
The fact is that screen capture is part of our lives nowadays. But do you know how to use it? If you don’t, keep following our article for more useful information.
Ways to take a screenshot
Despite being a very useful tool, some people still don’t know how to take a screenshot on their mobile phone or computer. But, that ends now as we will teach you different ways for taking screenshots.
Using the capture tool
An easy and practical way to take a screenshot in Windows 10 is through its built-in “capture tool” located in the Start Menu. It is quite easy to use. Let’s see:
- Press the Windows key on your keyboard – the one with the Windows logo;
- Afterward, open the search box and type “Capture tool”. It will show up as in the following image:
- Open the tool, click on the “New” button and start a new screen capture. This tool also allows you to choose the cut format: rectangle, free or full screen.
The captured image goes to the clipboard and you can paste it wherever you want. You can also take notes and share them via the tool itself.
This is useful as you can choose to show all the information on it or hide something. This way, you’re protecting information that you do not want to show to others.
Using the Print Screen key
To get a sense of the importance of screen captures, all keyboards come with a “Prt Scr” key. Guess what it does? It captures the screen!
That’s right, this key on your keyboard that you may not have even noticed, is just there to capture your computer screen.
When tap on the “Print Screen” key placed just above the “Insert” key on most keyboards, you will automatically take a screen capture and the image will be available to be pasted wherever you want using the “Ctrl + V” keyboard shortcut.
When you do this, you can attach the file in a social media dialog box, in Word, or in any other application you are using that allows pasting.
This option wins in the easiness in which the operation is performed. But note that is not possible to crop the image.
Therefore, if you are going to use this method check that no personal information is being sent along.
Keyboard commands for taking screenshots
Some keyboard commands can be helpful to you when taking a “print screen”. So, to make your life easier we brought a short list. Let’s see:
- Windows + Print screen
This is a very cool way to take a screen capture. By clicking on these two keys together your computer screen will briefly darken indicating that the screen capture was processed. Then you can find the capture in the Images folder on your computer.
- Windows + Shift + S
When using the “Windows + Shift + S” command you will see that your screen will darken slightly and a menu bar will pop up at the top offering some options for the capture.
This menu that appears when pressing that command, allows you to choose the precise way you want to take the screen capture, and with that, you can select only the information you want to send to others.
- Alt + Print Screen
Another way to quickly capture the screen is by pressing the “Alt + Print Screen” keys together. This method, also, does not allow you to cut the image to hide sensible information.
But you have the option to capture and past it to Paint, do your necessary editing there, and then save it in the desired folder. Below we will explain how to paste the image to Paint and save it later in a folder of your choice.
Screenshot on smartphone
Each passing day our life information is more and more on our smartphones. Currently, we’re using our phones even more than the computer.
We hold meetings through them, investments, planning, and a lot of other things. Therefore, it is imperative to emphasize how to take the screen capture on the smartphone as well.
We brought you some ways to use screen capture in some common phone models, such as Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and Xiaomi.
Apple
To perform the capture on Apple smartphones, you have to be on the screen you want to capture and simultaneously press the on/off switch, and the biometric sensor.
When doing so the screen will quickly darken indicating that the print was taken successfully.
Afterward, the image will appear as a thumbnail on the left side of the device, allowing its formatting according to the user’s taste.
If you do not want to make any edits or send them immediately to third parties, you can find them later in the photo gallery.
Samsung
In the newer Samsung line, the screen capture can be done by pressing the on/off switch and the lower volume rocker switch.
By doing this, the screen will quickly darken indicating that the print was successful.
If you’re using an older Samsung model, you should press the on/off button plus the home button instead.
Motorola
On Motorola devices, the screen capture is performed by simultaneously pressing the on/off switch and the volume down button.
When performing this task, the screen will quickly darken indicating that the capture was successful.
On newer models with Android 10 or newer versions, you can also slide three fingers on the screen and perform the capture.
Xiaomi
In Xiaomi devices, it is possible to take a screen capture in two ways. One by using the on/off button and the lower volume rocker switch at the same time.
The screen capture will be done and will then appear in the corner of the phone along with some options to edit or send.
The second option – if you have it activated in the phone settings – is to slide three fingers on the screen and perform the capture.
If you do not want to edit or send the image right away, it will be saved in your photo gallery, which can be accessed later.
How to cut the captured image?
As we stated above, some commands are quicker when taking a screen capture, but they fail to offer the user the option to cut the captured image preventing you from hiding sensible information.
However, this is easily solved by pasting the snapshot in tools like Paint or even in Microsoft Word where you can edit it in your desired way.
When using Paint to crop the image you have the option to save it in a wide array of formats by clicking “Save as” and then selecting the desired format.
You can also select the folder where you want the image to be saved.
Wrap Up
Fellow readers, we hope you enjoyed our tips on how to take screenshots in Windows 10, and hopefully, everything got a lot clearer now. See you next time!
If you want to read this same article in Portuguese, click here.
Check out some of our other awesome articles:
- Taking screenshots of videos (YouTube and others)
- Changing the screenshot destination on Windows 10
- Tips on how to use the Windows 10 Snipping Tool shortcuts
- Taking screenshots without using the PrtScr Key
- How to take screenshots of just one screen in a 2-monitor setup
- Using the Snipping Tool in Windows 10
- Taking screenshots in Windows 7 without the Snipping Tool
- How to screenshot entire pages in Google Chrome
