Taking a picture of your computer screen

this post goes out to my friend Lonnie, who wanted to know how you take a "screenshot".

The Quick of it:
> hit the print screen key
> "paste" it into a graphics program
> save your image
- you're done.

Explained:
1. if you're using a windows-based computer, hit the Prt Scr/Sys Rq key, and you've just taken a picture of whatever is on your screen.

the what key you ask?

this one . . .



you've probably never used it before, the only thing i use it for is screen captures. go ahead, hit it.

now, you have picture of your screen stored on your clipboard.


2. you can't see the clipboard, it's just a spot in your computer's memory. you have to get it out of there and onto something else to actually save the image for the future.

so, paste it into a graphics program. there's one on your computer called "Paint".
(click the start button, then go All Programs/Accessories/Paint).

once you have the Paint program open, you can paste your image into it by either right-clicking your mouse and choosing "paste" from the list that appears, or clicking edit from the menu at the top of the Paint screen, then choosing paste.

what i do for pasting all the time is hold down the Ctrl key (lower left of the keyboard), and push the letter V. it's a shortcut. i love it.

3. SAVE. you'll have to give your picture a name, and then select what type of file to save it as.




i recommend you save it as a .jpg, or a .gif - those are the two most common types of images and the internet is littered with them.

Some Tips:
> you can paste your screenshots right into Microsoft Word or Wordpad if you'd like.

> if you hold down the "Alt" key when you take the screenshot, it will just capture the "active window", not the whole screen. that's super-handy because a lot of the time you really only want what's in the window, and now you can get just that part of the screen.