Capture the contents of a window or screen in Windows or macOS

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Windows

Use the Snipping Tool in Windows, which highlights sections of the screen and allows you to save it as an image. Search for snipping tool, and click to open it.

You can also capture the image of either the entire screen or only the currently active window using the PrtScrn or Print Screen key. Once you have the image captured, you can import that information into an image editor to save or manipulate it.

  • To capture the contents of the currently active window, press Alt-PrtScrn (or Alt-Print Screen).
  • To capture the contents of the entire screen, press PrtScrn (or Print Screen) by itself.

In both of these cases, the image is captured to the Windows Clipboard.

To manipulate the image you just captured, use the Paint program that comes with Windows. To load Paint, click the Start button, and select Programs or All Programs. Select Accessories, and then choose Paint. To move the captured image into Paint, go to the Edit menu and select Paste. At this point, you can print the image, alter it, or save it.

Similarly, you can paste this image into any other program that handles images (for example, Microsoft Word or Excel).

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macOS

In macOS, to take a screenshot (including any menus you may have selected), press Command-Shift-3. You will hear a camera shutter click, and an image of your current screen will be saved to your desktop in PNG format. It will be named with the date and time that you take the screen shot.

To take a screenshot of only a portion of the screen:

  1. Press Command-Shift-4. Your mouse pointer will change into crosshairs.

    Note: If you want to cancel at any point in this process, press Esc.

  2. Move your mouse to the upper-left corner of the area you want to capture. Hold down the mouse button, drag the mouse to the lower-right corner of the area you want to capture, and then release the mouse button.

You can also take screenshots of individual windows, menus, and icons:

  1. If you want to take a screenshot of a menu, select it. If you want to take a screenshot of a window, click it to bring it into focus.
  2. Press Command-Shift-4, and then press the Spacebar. Your mouse pointer will change into a camera.

    Note: If you want to cancel at any point in this process, press Esc.

  3. Click the window, menu, or icon you want to capture.

Note:

Whether capturing an image of the screen, a portion of the screen, a menu, an icon, or a window, if you also hold the Ctrl key down along with other keys, it will save the image to the Clipboard rather than a file.

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