Screenshots come in handy in various ways, from showing proofs to screenshotting recipes you have found online. Everyone should know about this very basic tool which is used in our daily lives. In this article, we are presenting a complete guide to one of the most useful tools from Microsoft Windows, The Snipping tool. This post will guide on how you can use the Snipping or Screenshot Tool in Windows 11/10.
How To Use Snipping or Screenshot Tool In Windows
Using the Snipping Tool is not a big deal. It’s pretty simple and easy to use and go around. But it’s the other backend working that is pretty tricky and confusing. There are various edits you can do. You can also add your own shortcut of snipping tool. Inside the snipping tool app, there are features. Ranging from paintbrushes to highlighters which you can use to highlight your important stuff. You can also delay the screenshot after you press your shortcut key.
In this article, we will learn all about the Snipping tool and how to use it with tips and tricks. so without further ado, let’s get started.
- Open/Start Using Snipping Tool
- How to take a screenshot
- Save a screenshot
- Different Ways to Take a Screenshot
- Shortcut keys to Take Screenshot
- Edit Screenshots With Snipping Tool
- Snipping Tool Settings
Anyone can use this tool.
1] How To Open/Start Using Snipping Tool?
There are many ways to open up The snipping tool app. Let’s look at them here.
- To find the app go to the Windows search bar and type snipping tool and select it to open it.
- Another way to quickly access the snipping tool is to pin it to your taskbar.
- You can also put the shortcut on your desktop for easy and quick access.
2] How to take a screenshot?
Not only you can take screenshots with the shortcut keys you can also take screenshots with the app too. A plus point about this app is that you can choose how you want to take your screenshot. E.g., fullscreen, a part of the screen, or a part of another app concealing something.
- After you have opened the Snipping tool up a small window will open.
- Once you see this toolbar, arrange the screen the way you want it to be to take your screenshot.
- The screen will dim and you will see a plus cursor which will allow you to capture screenshots for a selective section of your screen. You can also capture a full-screen screenshot, keep reading this article to know everything.
3] Saving The Screenshot In The Snipping Tool
Once you capture a screenshot, it immediately appears as a notification in the Windows notification center. Click on that notification and use the Floppy disk icon in the top right corner to save the snip. You can save it to the desktop or anywhere and also change the type of the image that it’s saving. If you want to change it to PNG or JPEG or even a GIF file, you can easily do that.
4] Different Types Of Screenshots
There are five different types of screenshots you can take with the snipping too, here they are:
1. Free Form Snip
Free form snip allows you to take screenshots in any way you want to, even in a circle or any other shape.
Click open your Snipping tool after the right click on the Mode icon you will be able to see free form snip on the top. Just click to start.
Start making a free-form shape keeping the right click of the mouse pressed and release it once you get the desired shape.
2. Rectangular Snip
Rectangular snip allows you to take screenshots in a neat rectangle or a square of your choice on the screen you want to capture.
Click open your Snipping tool. The rectangular snip mode is selected by default, if it isn’t, click on the first option.
Like in Free form snip, you have to select the area you want to capture by pressing the right click on your mouse and releasing it once you are done with the selection.
3. Window Snip
We always have difficulty taking a screenshot of some alert of system viewer or any other small Windows that have been open, so window snip helps us in that.
Click open your Snipping tool after the right click on the Mode icon. You will be able to see the Window snip in the third. Just click to start.
Unlike the others, if you have two or more Windows open or even dialog boxes and you want to click on a certain program you just click on the program or dialog box to allow the screenshot to be taken.
4. Full-Screen Snip
It’s an old one but a very useful one too. You can click the full-screen screenshot.
Click open your Snipping tool. After the right click on the Mode icon, you will be able to see a Full-screen snip in the fourth option. Just click to start.
It will automatically take the full screenshot, and then you can edit it if you want.
5. Delay Screenshot
If you want to take screenshots about some second later because something is loading or something is only seen once, then you can use this option to do that. Click on the No Delay menu, and then select anywhere between 3, 5, and 10 seconds.
Now when you launch the snipping tool using the app or shortcut key, the Windows Snipping or Screenshot tool will appear only after the selected seconds.
5] Shortcut Keys to Take a Screenshot
It’s not possible to keep remembering to open your snipping tool to take the screenshots. When you are doing a really important and job, and you need to take a screenshot as soon as possible and paste it, opening the snipping too will take too much time, so you can take a screenshot with the help of some shortcut keys, which are easy to remember and use.
- Press PrtScn. This copies the entire screen to the clipboard. You can paste the screenshot into any program with ctrl + V that displays images, like Paint or Microsoft Word or even on web-WhatsApp.
- Press Alt + PrtScn. This copies the active window to the clipboard, which you can paste into another program.
- Press the Windows key + Shift + S. The screen will dim and the mouse pointer will change. You can drag to select a portion of the screen to capture. The screenshot will be copied to the clipboard, which you can paste into another program. (This shortcut only works if you have the latest version of Windows 10 installed, called the Windows 10 Creators Update.)
- Press the Windows key + PrtScn. This saves the entire screen as an image file. In the “Pictures” folder, you can find it in a subfolder called “Screenshots.”
6] Edit Screenshots With Snipping Tool
The snipping tool not only allows you to take the screenshot but also helps you to edit to help with your specific needs. It includes highlighting some words or circling some pictures, and you can also write on the screenshot, cut and paste something on it.
Let’s discuss some editing tools in the snipping tool app.
All the features are the same as Windows 10, but Windows 11 added snip and sketch to the snipping tool, so some more features are there to see.
- Pen: A very basic tool that we need to write on the screenshot. Not only does it just help us to write something, but we can circle things. You can choose the thickness and color.
- Highlighter: As the name suggests, you can highlight text to make it pop out. You can choose the thickness and color.
- Eraser: It helps to erase past annotations like pen and highlighter. If you have made any mistake, you can go back to it and fix it.
Now, the next features are only in Windows 11
- Ruler: You can get a scale/ruler you can measure anything that you are drawing or the images on the screenshots. There is also an option for a protractor that lets you measure angles on your screen.
- Touch enable: It’s safe to say that writing from a mouse is not easy, so you can use your fingers to draw something from the mousepad if you have a laptop.
- Crop: If you want to cut off some unwanted edge or picture, you can use this tool to crop it out.
7] Snipping Tool Settings
There are several settings you can change for the snipping tool, some of these are enabled by default, and some of these need to be enabled
Open the snipping tool and select the settings option from the three-dot menu from the top right corner. Let’s know more about the settings here:
-
- Auto copy to clipboard:- Copies the capture in the clipboard for easy pasting onto documents.
- Save snips:- Asks to save the capture as you close the editor.
- Multiple Windows:-Launches a new instance of the app for each capture.
- Snip outline:-Inserts borders to each snip automatically.
- Appearance:- You can choose dark, light, or use system settings as the options.
How Can I Share My Screenshots Directly?
Once you capture a snip, you will be able to see an outward arrow icon on the top bar of the snipping tool menu, use that option to share your screenshot. You can share a screenshot through outlook email, nearby share, and some other apps. Another way of doing this is to copy it into another image editor and then share it.
How To Add Snipping Tool To My Taskbar?
In the search box on the taskbar, type the snipping tool. You’ll see the Snipping Tool app and a list of actions you can take. Select Pin to taskbar. If the option is not available, then right-click on the listing, and then pin to taskbar.
The Windows Snipping or Screenshot tool is an important feature that comes in very handy when it comes to providing proofs, resolving bugs, troubleshooting Windows, and whatnot. There are as many use cases as you can think of. Now that you know everything about the snipping tool, make sure you share this article with everyone who might find it useful.
