Is it possible to take a screenshot on a computer? How to take a screenshot of your monitor

12.05.2024

Increasingly, when working at a computer, and on the Internet in particular, we need to take screenshots of pages.

Most likely, you already needed to do this in some game, or send some kind of report in the form of a screenshot to confirm your words.

Well, or it happens that the interlocutor does not quite understand what they want from him and need to literally use his fingers, or rather, on a skin, to highlight some element on the page and indicate an action.

It is for these purposes that this article is to solve your problem that does not give you peace and help.

If you can’t take a screenshot using the Print Screen key

Let's first look at how to take a screenshot of a page with the Print Screen key, namely, without any additional programs.

Stage 1: place the screen in the buffer

To do this, if you have a large keyboard (with a numeric keypad), then simply press the PrtScr key.
In this case, a screenshot of the entire screen will be taken and placed in the .

If you want to “take a picture” of only the active window (if several windows are open in Windows), then you need to press the key combination Alt+PrtScr. That is, you hold down Alt and, as it were, add PrtScr so that everything works.

If the key combination Alt+PrtScr does not work for you, then find the Fn key (next to Alt) and combine Fn+PrtScr.
This often happens on a laptop, where the keyboard is small and does not have a number pad on the right.

You can be on any website at this time, or simply in Word or another program, or play a game and press a combination of these keys to take a screenshot.

At the same time, we would like to note that you will not see any information that the keys worked. In order to understand that the screen has been made, you need to go to step 2.

Stage 2: insert the taken photo into the graphic editor

After we have completed the first stage, we launch the standard Paint program, which is available on any Windows OS:

And then simply press the key combination “Ctrl + V” in the program window

The screenshot will be pasted into the program from the clipboard. Now you just need to select “Save” in the top menu, or press the key combination “Ctrl+S” and select a location on your computer to save in any of the available formats: jpg, png, gif.

If you wish, you can stretch or shrink it.

Taking a screenshot of a page in Windows 7 using scissors

If you have the Windows 7 operating system, then you can do without the keys described in the previous section and without all kinds of inserts.

You just need to launch a standard and very convenient program called “Snipping Tool”.

You can find it in the Start menu. If you don’t see it there, then use the search, just like we searched for Paint.

Immediately when the program starts, the cursor will change to a cross. By holding down the right mouse button, you can select the desired area of the screen, release the button and a screenshot will be automatically taken.

This mode is called "Rectangle". It's the default. But you can select other options from the drop-down list in the menu: “free form”, “window”, “full screen”.

After the screenshot is taken, save it to your computer using the “Ctrl+S” key combination.

Lightshot Screenshot Software

Download the software using the button (for Windows):
Download Lightshot for free

or go to the official website https://app.prntscr.com/ru/. There is also a version for Mac.

In this issue, I will show you several basic options for taking a screenshot of the screen on a computer. And you can choose the option that suits you best.

Screenshot (screen) is a snapshot that represents what you currently see on the monitor. A screenshot can be useful when you are explaining to a friend how to set up a router, you need to capture a frame from a game or movie, when contacting support or posting a screenshot on social networks.

There are three main options for taking a screenshot of the screen on a computer:

standard Microsoft tools;
online services;
specialized programs.

Each of these methods is good in its own way. And to choose an excellent quality monitor or TV, study!

At the top left of the keyboard there is a button Print Screen.

Button to take a screenshot

It may look different on different devices: “Print Screen”, “PrtScn”, “PrntScrn”, “PrtSc” or “PrtScr”.

In order to take a screenshot of the screen on your computer simply, you need to:

1. Press the button Print Screen;

2. Log in to the program Paint(it is available on Windows OS);

3. Press "Insert"(the image will appear in the program);

Launching Paint

Saving a screenshot in Paint

5. Enter a file name and select a path to save the image.

On some laptop models you need to hold two buttons at the same time "Print Screen" and "Fn". Most often it is located on the keyboard at the bottom left.

Taking a screenshot on a laptop

Another option to take a screenshot using standard Windows tools is "Scissors" program. This option is considered more convenient than the first.

To make a screenshot, you need:

1. Press the button "Start";

2. Enter the word in the search bar "scissors"(the program will open);

Launching the scissors program

3. Press the button "Create";

4. Select the required area (arbitrary or rectangular);

5. Click on the left mouse button and select the desired area of the screen (the left mouse button is released only after the entire area is selected);

Screenshot in the scissors program

These two methods can be used on any Windows PC.

How to take a screenshot on a computer using online services

There are times when it is more convenient to take screenshots through an online service, of which there are quite a few on the Internet. For example, you can use the site PasteNow.ru or makescreen.ru .

To take a screenshot of the screen, you need:

Click the button Print Screen by copying the desired image (for a laptop - Print Screen+Fn).
Then go to the online service and simultaneously click on Ctrl+V(the image will be inserted into the site window).
To save the file on your PC, you need to right-click on the image and select save image as.
A window will appear in which you can rename the file, select the format and save path.

Taking a screenshot on your computer using an online service

The advantage of this method is the ability to save the image on the screen without installing third-party programs on the computer.

Special programs for screenshots

Special programs for creating screenshots can be paid or free. The advantage of special programs compared to the standard set of Windows applications is additional features. For example, editing an image, adding arrows, frames and other special effects.

Free programs for taking screenshots:

PicPick (free for home use only);
Greenshot;
Monoshap;
Joxi;
Clip2net;
Shotnes;

Each program has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The user decides how to take a screenshot of the screen on a computer, based on his own preferences and goals.

Personally, I prefer to use a screenshot program - Lightshot. Watch my video review of her and you might fall in love with her too.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Everyone or a laptop at one time or another is faced with the question: how to take a screenshot (or in other words, a snapshot - read more) of the screen, for example, in order to then send it to someone. Sometimes there are no special programs on your computer that help you implement all this quickly and efficiently.

It doesn’t matter, because the built-in capabilities of Windows (even in old XP) are quite enough to implement this task. If you use Windows 7, 8 or Vista, then they even have a special built-in program called “Scissors” for this purpose. So be sure to cope if you read the relevant section of this publication.

The second frequently asked question is: how to take a screenshot on your phone running Android, iOS (this operating system is used on iPhone and iPad), Windows Phone (used, for example, on Nokia Lumia), Sinbain and other OS. If you are encountering this for the first time, the answers will not be obvious to you.

And finally, I want to devote some of my time to describing specialized programs that allow you not only to take all imaginable screenshots on your computer and laptop, but also to automatically upload them to the Internet so that whoever you give the link to can view them and download them if desired. . I hope it will be interesting.

How to take a screenshot on a computer or laptop in Windows XP, 7 and 8

The most ancient and proven way to take screenshots on a computer is still the key "Print Screen". It is usually located at the top right of the keyboard, as shown in the following figure:

True, on different types of keyboards (depending on its size and purpose), instead of “Print Screen” it may be written: PrntScrn, PrtSc, PrtScn, PrtScr or something similar.

On laptops to take a screenshot, you may need to press not just one key, but a combination of them: Fn + Print Screen. The fact is that laptops (especially small ones) use a truncated keyboard, some of the keys of which are accessible only by holding down the additional Fn key, usually located at the bottom of the keyboard (these virtual keys will be written in the same color as the Fn inscription).

When you press the Print Screen key (or Fn + PrtScn in the case of a laptop), a screenshot of everything that was displayed on the screen of your computer or laptop at that moment will be copied. If you need to take a screenshot of only the currently active program window (which currently has focus), then you should use the key combination Alt+PrintScreen.

Okay, we can assume that we have learned how to take screenshots. Now is the time to learn how to use them, i.e. save them in the form of graphic files, which can then, for example, be sent to someone, inserted into a website (as I do) or stored in a secluded place. To do this, you will need to paste screenshots from your computer’s clipboard into any graphics program you have on your computer or laptop (off the top of my head, I can give examples of Photoshop, IrfanView, and dozens of others).

If there is nothing like this (you haven’t installed it, or you are working on someone else’s computer), then the Windows operating system itself has a built-in free graphics editor, Paint. Even if he is not perfect (more likely even simply wretched), but to “develop” the screenshot taken will do just fine. So, in order to fish Point out of the wilds of the software built into Windows, you will need to do the following manipulations: “Start” - “Programs” - “Accessories” - “Paint”.

Now, in an open graphic editor (Point or any other), select “File” - “Create” from the top menu (or press the Ctrl+N combination), and then type the Ctrl+V key combination (or select “Edit” from the top menu - "Insert"). The screenshot previously copied to the clipboard will be pasted into the editor window, and you can, if necessary, properly process it (crop, add captions, highlights, etc.).

At this stage, we have achieved that we finally saw with our own eyes the screenshot we made and even managed to mock (process) it, but this is not enough. It will still need to be saved as a graphic file (most often used for this). To do this, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S, or select “File” - “Save As” from the top menu. All that remains is to select the desired format and give the file a name. All. Now you can do whatever your heart desires with it.

How to take screenshots in the Scissors program from Windows 7 and 8

There is one obvious drawback in the method of taking screenshots described above - the process itself does not occur in an explicit form, and for those who encountered this for the first time, it may seem that after clicking the “Print Screen” button, nothing happened at all. However, in Windows Vista, 7 and 8, a new tool called “Scissors” has appeared, which allows you to take screenshots in a much more understandable and visual way. In the same program they can be processed and saved as a graphic file.

The “Scissors” program lives in the same place as the Point discussed just above: “Start” - “Programs” - “Standard” - “Scissors”. As a result, you will see a tiny program window, and the rest of the screen will seem to be overexposed.

It is assumed that you are already ready to select the desired area of the screen on your computer or laptop in order to take a screenshot of it. If this is the case, then hold down the left button and select the fragment. If what is open at the moment is not what you wanted to “capture”, then click on the “Create” button in the “Scissors” program window (or click on Escape) so that it is pressed out. After that, open what you want to screenshot, and again click on the “Create” button, then select the required area of the screen.

Default used to select a rectangular area, but if you click on the arrow to the right of the “Create” button, you can choose one of four options:

Free form - you are free to circle the desired area with the mouse cursor or a graphic pen (if you use one)
Rectangle - default
Window - a screenshot of the window of the program that will be located under the mouse cursor will be taken (for clarity, it will be surrounded by a red frame)
Whole screen - in this case the program takes a screenshot of everything that is currently displayed on the screen (except for the mouse cursor)

What makes this method better than using the “Print Screen” button is that you will immediately see the screenshot taken in the window of the graphic editor built into “Scissors”, where you can draw on something using the three available tools: a pen, marker and eraser.

The functionality of the “Scissors” editor doesn’t even reach Point, but it will be possible to quickly scribble something on a screen (I’m getting greedy in this regard, because I use a professional program to work with screenshots, which will be discussed below). In general, when you have made the necessary notes, you can safely press the button with the floppy disk to save screen in the form of a graphic file in Gif, Png or Jpg format, and it is also possible to do this in the form of a separate Html file (it is not very clear, however, for what purpose).

There is also a button on the program panel for sending a screenshot as an email attachment, for example, when you took a screenshot to show it to someone. Again, there are options for third-party programs for computers and laptops that allow you to automatically upload screenshots taken to the network and give everyone access to them, but we’ll talk about them a little later.

And finally, by selecting “Tools” - “Options” from the top menu, you will have access to the limited settings of this program.

In my opinion, the developers of Windows 7 and 8 could have added a little functionality to this built-in program so that it would not look so unpresentable in terms of editing screenshots. .

Yes, I also forgot to say that “Scissors” allows you to take a screenshot of, for example, a drop-down menu. To do this, you will need to open this menu and press the key combination “Ctrl+Print Screen”. A screenshot of the desired menu will be taken, which can then be cropped and saved.

Programs for working with screenshots in Windows

First, I’ll tell you a little more about the programs that I use myself, and then I’ll give a list of other popular applications for working with screenshots.

One of the most popular software on my computer is . It has a lot of capabilities and can be useful not only for a webmaster, but also just in the household for solving a number of everyday tasks, one way or another related to taking a screenshot or recording video from the screen.

The program has powerful functionality for both taking screenshots and processing them. For example, it easily allows you to take a photo of a web page that takes up more than one screen (it takes a long time to scroll to the end).

For this purpose, there is a universal and convenient “All in one” operating mode, when by pressing the red button or the Print Screen key (when Snagit is running, this key starts working specifically for this application, and not for copying the screen to the clipboard), you can easily do whatever you please.

For example, if you press the “Print Screen” button and move the mouse cursor to the application window from which you would like to take a photo, then magic happens. By moving the cursor over different places in the window, you will see that either the entire window, or the menu, or some other internal divisions will be automatically selected. Those. you don’t need to aim precisely to draw a frame around the fragment you want to capture.

But you can also work in normal mode, selecting the desired area while holding down the left mouse button, and at the same time you can aim accurately, because a magnifying glass appears under the cursor, magnifying the point of contact of the cursor with the screen.

With the help of Snagit, you can capture video from the screen and do much more. And already about possibilities for processing screenshots on your computer or laptop In general, songs can be composed. Here it will probably be easiest to provide a few screenshots so that the greatness of this creation can be understood:

There are a number of other programs that are roughly on par with Snagit:

FastStone Capture— a good screenshot for a laptop or computer, not overloaded with anything unnecessary.
PicPick— allows you to quickly take a screenshot of the computer screen or any selected area of it, including scrolling windows. In terms of functionality it is very close to Snagit, except that it can’t capture video. The built-in editor allows you to actually professionally process the resulting image.

Programs for taking and uploading screenshots from a computer to the Internet

Clip2net can not only take screenshots and record videos from the screen, but also allows you to instantly post the whole thing on the Internet (the link to the screenshot will be automatically copied to the clipboard and you just need to paste it into an email, website, forum or blog). As a result, you will not need to use your own hosting or one of Yandex Disk, Dropbox, etc.

After taking a screenshot, the program will open a window for editing the captured image. If you do not need this operation, then in the Clip2net settings, check the “Immediate download” box. In the editing window you can use standard tools (inserting labels, selections, arrows):

Clip2net is not a unique program of its kind, and there are several good ones on the market. programs for quickly sharing screenshots:

Joxi— a good screenshot with the ability to instantly publish. They are edited directly when the desired area of the screen is selected, i.e. without going to the editor window.
Lightshot— allows you to quickly take a screenshot, add notes to it, draw arrows and other shapes with a pencil. When a file is saved on a computer, it is immediately assigned a unique name, and you can immediately send it to the developers’ server and instantly receive a link to it, which is very convenient.
— outrageously simple and concise to use. There seems to be nothing superfluous in it, but everything that is there hits the bull's eye (in my experienced opinion). Actually, the idea, as far as I understand, was taken from the Apple people (Mac) - you activate the key combination and the picture with the screenshot will immediately fall on the desktop.
, which not long ago learned how to take screenshots and upload them to its own Yandex cloud with a link to them. The program has a fairly convenient graphic editor that allows you to add arrows, frames, lines, etc. to the screenshot. things.
Monosnap is also a very good service that allows you to take, process and post online not only screenshots, but also screencasts (video captures from the screen). It also allows you to organize access to your desktop or webcam in real time.
Skitch— a simple screenshot and screencaster, but with somewhat poorer functionality than the services described above. However, it allows you to send screenshots from your computer or laptop to Evernote, of which it is a part.
Jet Screenshot— allows you to capture the entire screen, the active window or a selected area, and then crop the resulting screen, add arrows, circle the desired area or insert an inscription. In the program settings, you can specify where the final file will be saved - on a computer (laptop) or on a developer server with a link to it.

How to take screenshots on a phone (Android, iOS and other platforms)

Also quite an interesting question. If everything about a computer or laptop is more or less clear, the problem is not how to do it, but how to do it in the most optimal and convenient way. But it’s a little more difficult to understand how to take a screenshot of a mobile phone or smartphone, because there is no special button for this purpose, but a combination of control keys is used, which will differ for different types of mobile operating systems.

Let's start with iOS, on which phones from the Apple campaign ( iPad and iPhone). In order to take a screenshot, you will need to hold down two buttons for several seconds: “Power” (sleep/wake) and “Home”. The resulting images are saved in the Photos application on your device as part of the operating system.

How to take a screenshot on Android

The Android operating system has several versions, for which the method of taking screenshots differs. In addition, phone manufacturers also sometimes make their own adjustments (for example, on my old Samsung Galaxy S3, a screenshot is taken by swiping the edge of the palm across the screen from left to right). Actually, I’ll try to summarize the information I have on different types of devices:

Android 1 and 2— devices running on this OS did not have a built-in ability to take screenshots, so we had to install third-party applications to help do this. The methods for taking screenshots in this case depended on the application you chose.
Android 3.2- starting from this version and before the appearance of the four, to take a screenshot of the screen it was enough to hold down the “Recent programs” button for a while.
Android 4— a screenshot is taken after briefly holding the “Volume Down” and “Power” keys.
Samsung running Android— most often, this phone manufacturer allows you to take screenshots by holding down a pair of “Home” and “Power” buttons, or “Back” and “Home”.
HTC running Android- hold down the Home and Power buttons for a few seconds

Screenshots obtained in this way from an Android phone are saved in the “Gallery” application, which comes with the OS.

There is also such an operating system for mobile phones as Windows Phone, on which, for example, the fairly popular Nokia Lumia phones work. In Windows Phone 8, to take a screenshot, you just need to press the “Power” button (on the right side of the phone) and the “Win” button (at the bottom of the phone screen). But in Windows Phone 8.1 everything has changed a little - you need to click on “Power” and “Volume Up”.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

How to take a screenshot on Windows?

Screenshot - how to take and why? Most screenshots are taken to save an image for support services or to help another user. Using images, you can clearly show another user a window in which some actions need to be carried out. Sometimes a screenshot is used as a desktop image; there are many ways to do this. So, how to take a screenshot on a computer?

This article will look at both classic ways to take a screenshot on a computer, and more interesting options for how to take a screenshot, for example, using special programs.

Screenshot with the “Print Screen” key

Screenshot - how to take it on a computer? The first method of saving a screenshot involves using standard computer programs and functions. A copy is made using the “Print Screen” key on the computer keyboard, usually located at the top of the keyboard.

Good to know! In some laptop models, this key functions as two buttons, so to activate the screenshot function you must simultaneously press the “Fn” and “Prt Scr” keys; this method does not save the screenshot to a file, but simply copies it to the clipboard.

To save an image as a separate file, you should use the standard Paint program; here’s how you can take a screenshot on your computer and then save it. It can be found in the Start menu in the Standard Programs subsection, another simpler method is to enter the name of the program in the start search engine, the search produces a list of programs with similar names, in them you need to select the one you need and just run it.

This is how you can find Paint in Windows 10

In order for an image from the clipboard to appear in Paint, it must be pasted like a piece of text in a word processor. To do this, you can use the “Ctrl” and “V” key combination; another method of insertion is made by clicking the edit button with the mouse in the program field and selecting “Paste” from the proposed list of actions.

Now we save the screenshot into a separate file. To do this, find the image of the floppy disk at the top of the screen, click on it and select the folder in which the file with the screenshot will be stored. By default, the program saves to a file in the “PNG” format, you can leave it in this form. It is recommended to save the image in JPEG format, this is a standard image format and takes up less space. You can change the extension of the picture in the save field.

Using this method, you can take a screenshot not of the entire screen, but only of the active application; this will be useful if several windows are open on the monitor at the same time, and you do not need to copy them. To do this you need to click key combination “Alt” and “Prt Scr”, then the same scheme as with the image of the entire screen.

Please note that pasting an image copied to the clipboard is possible not only into the standard Paint program, but also into other programs, for example, Photoshop, Word, or even directly into the Outlook email sending form.

Method using scissors

This method of making a screen on a computer is no more complicated than the classic one described above. For this, a standard utility is used, which is available by default in the Windows system. To open it, you need to go to the “Start” menu, select “All programs” in it, in standard programs find the item called “Scissors”, open it.

Scissors in Windows 10

Important! This method is convenient because you can take a screenshot of any area on the computer screen and even select its shape. Not only will it help in solving the question of “how to take a screenshot,” but it will also make it in any desired shape!

By default, “Scissors” offers to create a rectangular image shape, it appears immediately after clicking the “Create” command. If you want to copy an area in the form of a circle, then simply select the “free shape” option and trace the shape you need.

We create a selection of the desired area and find ourselves in the “Scissors” program window.

Here the user can edit the form using the “Pen” or “Marker”; in case of incorrect tracing, you can remove marks with an eraser. Saving the result follows the same principle as in Paint, click on the floppy disk symbol and save the work. In the Scissors program, it is recommended to save the file in the JPEG format; you can make a PNG, but this picture will not be transparent, the utility is not able to work correctly with this format.

Taking a screenshot in Windows 8

How to take a screenshot on a computer in Windows 8? The user needs to display the required image on the monitor and click key combination “Windows” and “PrtSc”. The screenshot is automatically copied to the clipboard. In order to get it, you need to go to the “Image Library”, in it find a folder called “Screenshots”. Now all images copied from the desktop will be stored in this folder; in the settings you can change the location where the images are saved.

Taking a screenshot in Mac OS

To save an image from a computer screen, you do not need separate programs; for this you need to use several commands. The user can view all of them in the computer settings, they can be found in the “System Preferences” menu, then click on “Keyboard & Mouse”, from there we go to “Keyboard Shortcuts” using the “C” key.

There are only three commands to take a screenshot on a computer on a Mac:

"Cmd ⌘", "Shift" and "3" - the command saves a copy entire desktop in a separate file;
"Cmd ⌘", "Shift" and "4" - the command saves image of the selected area in a separate file;
"Cmd ⌘", "Shift", "4" and "Space" - the command saves program window images.

To additionally add an image to the clipboard at the same time as commands, you need to press the “Ctrl” key.

Another interesting way is to save a screenshot via Yandex Disk; for this you must have it installed. You can read more about the installation and functions of Yandex.Disk in this article. After Yandex Disk is installed, it’s quite easy for you to press the Prt Scr key on the keyboard (method 1).

The screenshot editing program will automatically launch.

Screenshots from a computer screen using special programs

Floomby (Screenshot)

How can you not take advantage of the many excellent screenshot-taking programs that help you take a screenshot of your screen without difficulty? The Floomby program deserves special attention; firstly, it is free, and, secondly, working with it is a pleasure. The official website for downloading is screenshoter.rf.

PrtScr program

This program can take transparent screenshots of the screen, its only drawback is that the interface is in English, but this does not make it very difficult to use. It can be installed on any Windows OS platform and weighs only 2.4 MB, which will not take up much device memory.

Screenshot Maker program

Another option for a free program that can take screenshots, it weighs only half a megabyte, and you don’t need to install it to work. A special feature of using the program is the ability to automatically take a screenshot at the required period of time; when saving an image, the program immediately provides a choice of three formats for creating a file, these are jpg, bmp and gif, you can immediately select the folder in which the picture is saved. Here pictures are taken of the part of the screen that is required, and you can immediately adjust their size. You can download the program on the official website -

Sometimes it is very important to save a screenshot and it will be correct if you use exactly the program whose functions are best suited for each specific case.
In this article you will find some tips on how to take a screenshot using Windows and special programs, since knowing and using several programs helps the user achieve the desired result when taking a screenshot.

A screenshot is an image that stores information taken from the monitor screen; literally translated, this means a screenshot, which fully reflects the essence of such an image.
Why might a user need to save information from their monitor screen?

There are actually a lot of reasons, I will give some of them...

There can really be a lot of reasons, and every computer user will find his own reason why he needs to save a screenshot.

Taking a screenshot is a two-step process.

The first stage is storing the contents of the screen in the computer's memory.
The second stage is saving this content as a graphic file on a storage device or on the network on a special website.

And if we cannot influence the first stage in any way, then the quality of such a photo may ultimately depend on the second stage in this process. This may depend on the program that takes the image from the clipboard for further editing and saving.
Let's take a closer look at the process of creating and saving an image from your monitor screen.

To take a screenshot using standard Windows tools, you need to find the Print Screen key (Prt Scr, Prt Sc, etc.), which is located in the top row next to the F12 key.

Pressing the Print Screen button takes a screenshot of the entire screen. In order to capture only the active window, you must press Alt + Prt Scn simultaneously. If you are working on a laptop, then, on top of everything else, you will have to press the Fn button:

Fn + Prt Scrn to capture the entire screen.
Fn + Alt + Print Screen to take a screenshot of the active window.

The Print Screen key does not create any graphic files on the hard drive; it sends the screen image to the clipboard.