Today I want to give a short tutorial on the screenshot.
People who typically use screenshots are gamers to capture their scores to brag to their friends about their level achievements or to write how to get past a certain level. I'm here to say that the screenshot feature is probably one of the most overlooked power tools available to any computer user. I know there are many people out there who wish they could share what they see on the computer screen with friends or family via email or some sort of communication only to end up with a feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment because they have never been shown how to use it.
First and foremost, I have to give credit where credit is due to my oldest friend David over at SterryIT for showing me how to do this on a Windows operating system. In turn I showed a few people over at the old cookie factory that I worked how much easier it was to send a picture of my failed computer vs. a lengthy semi-descriptive email. Before long, everyone was sending more pictures than text through the mail system. This just goes to show that a picture is definitely worth more than a thousand words.
A screenshot is nothing more than capturing the image that is being represented on the screen. It makes no difference what is being rendered or where it is being rendered from. I use the process daily and have been for years to do all kinds of things from email tech support a picture of a system error notification to a work around for capturing PDF locked books from the University I attend. If it shows on the screen, it can be captured and saved.
The best part about this is there is no special software to be installed and it is really easy to do. In this short article I'm going to cover how to do it in both Windows and in Linux. Believe it or not, it is even easier in Linux than Windows and I'll explain why later. So for now just follow along.
For Windows:
On a Windows system, with anything on the screen to be captured press the "Print Screen" key. This is going to capture everything that is on the screen and temporarily place it on the clipboard. Now just simply open the "Paint" program and select new then paste. The entire screen of the Paint program will fill with the image captured just as it is seen by the monitor. Everything that was visible on the screen now is a picture that can be edited, modified, emailed or whatever.
To go one step farther in the process, hold down Ctrl+Alt+PrintScreen and only the image of the top most window will be captured to the clipboard. This is particularly handy for capturing those system pop-ups and such items for use or reference later; It's a short cut to cropping and pasting with the Paint editor.
For Linux:
These instructions work on both Ubuntu and openSUSE since it is in both of them that I have most of my experience.
In these two Linux OS the process is made even simpler. With whatever a person wants to capture is on the screen, press "Print Screen" and a new window will open with a view of the captured image and options on what the user wants to do with it. This is a small program that is pre-installed in both systems and initiated by default. Most Linux users are already savvy enough to figure this out if they have chosen to use Linux as their primary OS, so I don't think there is much need to describe the program any farther.
That's pretty much it. As I stated before, being able to capture what is shown on the screen is a very powerful tool if used properly. For anyone who has tried to use the right click "Save As" function built into browsers only to get shut down by a lot of image sites, you'll love this little trick. The entire operation runs through the OS which makes it independent of any browser scripts disabling an image save functionality. Now that I have explained this little tip to people, please be cautious of how you use it. Remember that some people work hard on their artwork and stuff like that and try to show it online without being ripped off so just use good sense when copying images from the net.
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