Greenshot is a free and open source screen capture application for Windows users. While Windows has the Snipping Tool included, which offers more flexibility than just using the Print Screen key on your keyboard, it is not as fully featured a screen capture application as Greenshot.
Greenshot makes it very easy to take a screen capture and then draw and annotate upon it without having to open another application.
Highlights of Greenshot
Greenshot is a very intuitive screen capture application with some very useful features.
- Free to download and use, even in commercial environments
- Can easily remove the mouse pointer from a screen capture
- Integrates automatically with the Print Screen key
- Capture a specific area of the screen with option to crop the shot before saving
- Easily add rectangles, ellipses, lines and arrows in different colors and weights
- Add text in different fonts and sizes
- Email screen captures to friends or colleagues
- Annotations remain fully editable until the screen capture has been closed
- Obfuscate parts of the screen capture
Why Use Greenshot
Many users may not consider that they need a screen capture application like Greenshot and are happy with a simple full screen shot or to use the more basic Snipping Tool. However, Greenshot can be a very useful way to communicate thoughts about anything that can be displayed upon your computer's monitor.
For instance, a designer could take a screen capture of a print design or web page that they are working on and write notes directly on it explaining the thought process behind specific design decisions. Clearly explaining reasons for various design decisions upfront can often prevent client objections before they get a chance to take hold, so speeding up the design process.
Software like Greenshot can also be useful on a personal basis for sharing information quickly with friends. You could take a screen capture of an interesting web page and write notes on it before emailing it to a friend. The combination of annotations on a screen capture can make it easier to communicate a message clearly.
I personally use Greenshot to produce all my screen captures for tutorials that I write for this site and have found that it significantly streamlines this process and actually encourages me to add more helpful images to those articles.
Limitations of Greenshot
I've been using Greenshot for a few months now and have become a fan. I genuinely can't find much fault with the application as it seems to do all that I need. One minor niggle is that I haven't been able to find a way to save to a directory on another machine on our network by default, meaning I have to manually select the path each time. It only seems able to set a default save folder on the same machine that it is installed on.
Some users of similar commercial software will have options to save screen captures online automatically, which they can share with friends and if that is functionality that you enjoy, it is missing from Greenshot. However as this is a free application and you can email captures, I suspect that most users will be happy to accept the lack of such a feature.
Help and Support
Greenshot is a very intuitive and easy to use screen capture application and as such, most users will probably be able to dive straight in and find their way around the user interface very quickly. If, however, there is any aspect that isn't clear, the Help menu opens a help file that explains all aspects of using the software.
On the Greenshot website, there is a feedback option displayed on every page, which could be used to open a discussion about aspects of the software if required.
You can download a free copy of Greenshot from the Greenshot website.