Question: What is a Screen Shot?
What is a screen shot? What software do I need to take a picture of my computer screen?
Answer: "Screen shot" is the phrase used to describe the action of capturing your computer desktop or anything shown on your computer screen to a static image file. In other words, it is a way of taking a snapshot, or picture, of your computer screen. Some people also call it a screen grab.
Screen shots can be very helpful when you need to demonstrate something that would be difficult to explain in words. Here are just a few examples of situations where a screen shot can be useful and why:
- In software reviews, to show what the software looks like.
- In software tutorials, to demonstrate how to perform a function.
- In technical support troubleshooting, to show error message or software issues.
You do not need special software to take a picture of your screen because screen shot functionality is built into all current operating systems.
- How to Capture a Screen Shot with the Snipping Tool in Windows Vista or Windows 7
- How to Capture a Screen Shot with Windows
- How to Capture a Screen Shot with Mac OS X
- How To Capture a Screen Shot on iPhone or iPod Touch
- How to Capture a Screen Shot in Linux
In addition, many graphics programs also have screen capture capabilities built in. However, if you take screen shots often, using special screen capture software can come in handy. Dedicated screen capture software offers many benefits, such as:
- the ability to automatically name and save your screen shots to a specific folder,
- auto-scroll functions to capture long documents like Web pages that don't fit on the screen,
- timed captures to allow you prepare the workspace before capturing,
- markup tools for adding callouts, arrows, shapes, and text annotations to your screen shots,
- options to include or exclude the mouse cursor.
You can find screen capture software in the following categories:
