Taking screenshots and clips on a Windows PC or a Mac

Screenshots and clipping on a PC:

Using keyboard commands:

  • To screenshot on a PC, hit WINDOWS-KEY+PRTSCRN. That will save a screenshot to your Pictures/screenshots directory.
  • To crop or edit your screenshot, use any paint or photo-editing program and crop & save.

Using the Windows Snipping tool:

  • Click the START button.
  • Type in Snipping Tool, click on the icon for the Windows Snipping Tool.
  • Use the tool. The icons in the program allow you to do things such as to annotate, load paint (to crop, etc.), and to save).
  • For further instructions from Microsoft, go here.

Screenshot on a Mac (courtesy Jean Paul Moreno):

To take a screen shot of the entire screen:

  • Press Command-Shift-3.
  • The screen shot will be on the desktop in a .png format.
  • To crop or edit your screenshot, use any paint or photo-editing program and crop & save.

To take a screen shot of a specific portion of the screen:

  • Press Command-Shift-4.
  • A crosshair will replace the mouse pointer. Move the crosshair to where you want the the screenshot to begin then drag the crosshair to fill the area you want to select. Once you have the area selected, release the mouse button (or trackpad).
  • The screenshot will be on the desktop in a .png format.
  • To crop or edit your screenshot, use any paint or photo-editing program and crop & save.

To take a screenshot of a window:

  • Press Command-Shift-4
  • A crosshair will replace the mouse pointer.
  • Press the Space bar.
  • The crosshair will change to a camera icon.
  • Move the camera over to the desired window. The window will be highlighted
  • Then press (notice this is a different action) the mouse or trackpad button.
  • The screenshot will appear on the desktop as a .png file.
  • To crop or edit your screenshot, use any paint or photo-editing program and crop & save.

Posted July 2, 2018