Many windows 10 users find taking a screenshot a little bit hard. From my experience, I first faced trouble when shortcuts of taking screenshots that I knew were not working. But a huge portion, especially new users do not know the shortcuts even. There are some simplest ways to take screenshots and I will show you how to take screenshots on windows 10 especially. If you went through this article, you will find how easy is it actually! In this article, I am going to show you every pros and cons of taking screenshots in Windows 10.
Windows has some built in ways to capture screenshot and a lot of incredible third party screenshot apps available over online too. We talked in details here – screenshot apps available for windows
A Few Words Before Starting
There are several ways to take screenshots in Windows 10. But as I said before, you can face trouble as someone tells you a shortcut or method, but on your PC it is not working. So in this article, when I am going to describe the shortcuts, I will mention 2-3 more shortcuts rather than one. One more thing is accidentally one method can fail on your computer, like you are using a button in your keyboard was not working properly since a long ago but you do not know that. So when you are to use a method, make sure accessories in your PC that will be required are all fine.
How to Take Screenshots on Windows 10
In this article, I will describe 5 ways to take screenshots in Windows 10. Then you can wonder which one you should try ! Actually, you can try any of them. If by any means you won’t feel comfortable using a specific method, then you can try other.
Method-1: Using Snipping Tool
The snipping tool is build in the app in Windows OS. In Windows 10, Microsoft has fixed its bugs and now, it has become an awesome tool to take screenshots in Windows 10. In Windows 7 or 8, snipping tool cannot take the screenshot that involves mouse movement like pop-up menus, tooltip etc. But in windows 10, it has been fixed. You can take screenshots of the way you want by snipping tool. Amazing, huh?
How to use snipping tool:
- Search the ‘Snipping tool’ in your PC’s search bar and click on the appeared app.
- Click on ‘Delay’. You can see some options for 0-5 seconds and select how many seconds you want to wait for taking screenshots. But if you want to capture screenshots of pop-up menus, tool-tip and so on, you should select 3 or more.
- Then click New. Now you will find four options. Free-form snip, your selected area will be whatever you want.
One: Rectangular snip, your selected area will be rectangular.
Two: I recommend you to select rectangular snip as taken screenshots in this shape look good!
Three: If you want to capture your active window, select window snip
Four: For full-screen capture, select full-screen snip.
- Select your desired area and after depending on your chosen seconds on Delay, your screenshot will be captured.
Method-2: Using Windows Key + Print Screen
By this method, you can capture your full screen. On your keyboard, there is a print screen button. It can be named as ‘PrtSc’ or ‘PrntScrn’ or ‘PrtScn’ or ‘Print Sc’ or something like that. Click ‘Windows + Print screen’ and your screenshot you will be captured. If this does not work, try ‘windows + Ctrl + Print Screen’ or ‘windows + Fn + Print Screen’. Your screen will be faded for a while when you will capture. If this is not enabled, go to System → Advanced system settings → Advanced tab → Settings → Visual effects
→ Turn on Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing.
You will find your captured screenshots in this below directory:
C drive → users → Pictures → Screenshots
Method-3: Using Print Screen and Paint
If you want to capture your full screen, then click the Print screen on your keyboard. The image will be copied to your clipboard and then you can use paint and paste the image there. If you want to capture your active window, click on the bar of that window and then hold ‘ Alt + PrtSc’. If the shortcut does not work, hold ‘Alt + Fn + PrtSc’. The image will be copied and then you can paste it into Microsoft Paint or any image editor you want.
Method-4: Using Game DVR
If you are a gamer, then this is for you. Microsoft has given access to capture and record screens when you are playing Windows 10 games. By game DVR you can also capture screen whenever you want. Here are the steps :
- Search Xbox in your PC’s search bar and open it.
- Go to Xbox Settings → Game DVR → Turn on ‘Take screenshots using Game DVR’.
- Here you will find the by default shortcuts. You can create shortcuts if you want.
- When you want to take screenshots, Press Windows + G (by default or use your created shortcut). A box named ‘Yes, this is a game ‘ will appear and check it. Then press Win + Alt + PrtScn or your created shortcuts. Your screen will be captured within a while.
- You can find your screenshots under this directory:
C drive→ Videos →Captures
Method-5: Using External Software
Windows 10 has its own tools to capture screenshots. So why external software? Because external software gives you a huge scope to take screenshots in the simplest way and you can customize these captured screenshots easily. There are many free and paid software like a light shot, PicPick, ShareX, etc and you can use those apps to take screenshots in Windows 10.
FAQ
I have answered some FAQs here. See whether you can relate one of them!
How to take a screenshot of an active window?
It often happens you need to capture your active window rather than the full screen. You can do it in two ways →
- Using PrtSc
→ Click on the title bar the window you want to capture. Then press ‘Alt + PrtSc’ or ‘Alt + Fn + PrtSc’. The image of the active window will be copied to the clipboard instantly.
→ Go to Paint or any image editor you want. Paste the image and do whatever you want. - Using the snipping tool
→ Search snipping tool and open it. Click on the title bar of the window you want to capture.
→ Go to ‘New’ option of snipping tool and click window snip. A screenshot will be captured and saved instantly.
How to take a screenshot of the whole screen?
- Using PrtSc
→ Press Window + PrtSc and your full screen will be captured. You can find your taken screenshot under this directory: C drive → users → Pictures → Screenshots - Using snipping tool
→ Search snipping tool and open it.
→ Go to ‘New’ option of snipping tool and click Full-screen Snip. Your whole screen will be captured.
How to take a screenshot without using any program?
You can simply use PrtSc button on your keyboard to capture screenshots in Windows 10. There are many shortcuts for capturing different types of screenshots. You can use windows + PrtSc shortcut for capturing the whole screen. Or if you want to capture your active window, press Alt + PrtSc or Alt + Fn + PrtSc. See my other FAQs for a specific type of screenshot and more shortcuts.
How to take a screenshot of a specific part of the screen?
- Using PC’s by default shortcuts
Note: It only works on Windows 10 creators update. If you are using a different version, skip it, scroll down and see my instructions.
→ Press Windows + Shift + S. Now you can select the region you want to capture and after selecting, a screenshot of the selected area will be copied to the clipboard. Open paint or any other image editor. Paste (Ctrl + V) the image and save it. - Using snipping tool
→ Search snipping tool and open it.
→ Go to ‘New’ option of snipping tool. Select free-form or rectangular snip. Then select the region you want to capture. Your screenshot will be captured in a while.
How to take screenshots of pop-ups, tooltip or that involves mouse movement?
- Using PrtSc
→ Open that pop-up or tooltip and press Window + PrtSc. A screenshot will be captured. You can find your taken screenshot under this directory :
C drive → users → Pictures → Screenshots - Using snipping tool
→ Search snipping tool and open it.
→ Go to ‘Delay’ option and select 5 seconds.
→ Then go to ‘New’ option and select full-screen snip. Now you have to open the pop-up or tooltip or so on within 5 seconds. After 5 seconds, a screenshot will be captured.
Conclusion
If you have gone through the whole article, I hope now taking screenshot seems an easy peasy matter to you. Before finishing, I want to suggest you to use the snipping tool to take screenshots. The other methods are fine, but the shortcuts may fail. In laptops, this problem can occur. But when you will use the snipping tool, you won’t find a single type of screenshots that you cannot take!
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