There are many times when it is helpful to have an image of something displayed on your computer screen. This is often called taking a screen shot. XnView is a free image viewer that's handy for a lot of things--including capturing screen shots.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: n/a
Here's How:
- Open XnView.
- Go to Tools > Capture Screen... and the Capture setup dialog box will appear. This is where you set the options for your screen shot.
- If you choose Desktop under the Capture setup, your entire desktop will be included in the screen shot--that is, everything you see on your monitor.
- If you choose Active Window under the Capture setup, only the window that is active will be included in the screen shot.
- If you choose Window under the Capture setup, a menu will list all the open windows on your system at the time. Only the window you select will be included in the screen shot.
- Under Method, you can choose to capture the screen after a delay or when you press a certain hot key. You can specify the delay time in seconds, or the hot key you wish to use to trigger the screen shot.
- Under Options, you can choose:
- Client area, to capture the application window without its "chrome" (title bar and window borders),
- Hide XnView, to minimize XnView when the capture is initiated,
- Include cursor, to have the cursor shown in your screen shot, and
- Multiple capture, to capture multiple screen shots in a row.
- Under Save you can choose to open the captured image in XnView, or automatically save it to a file on your computer. To save a file, choose the directory and file format format you want the file saved to. (See Tips below for format suggestions.) The screen shot will be saved to the folder you selected with the file name "capture_" appended by the date and a unique number.
- After setting options, click OK, and wait for the delay timer or press the hot key to initiate the screen capture.
Tips:
- XnView will only capture from the primary monitor in a multi-monitor environment.
- If your screen shot contains a limited number of colors and you want to retain crisp lines and keep the file size small, save as a GIF file.
- If your screen shot contains many colors and you want to retain crisp lines and full quality, save as a PNG file.
- If your screen shot contains many colors and you want to make the file size small, save as a JPEG file.
