Windows 7’s Snipping Tool

 
This will be old news to many readers, but I only recently discovered the Snipping Tool in Windows 7, and it is so useful and easy to use, I feel compelled to share. With this little gadget you can take a stable snapshot of anything on your computer screen and paste it into a Word doc, an e-mail, a blog post, or pretty much anything you would normally paste into. There’s often no need to save it or crop it, because you select exactly what you need in the first place. And no need to attach it, because you can simply paste it.

The snipping tool can capture anything on your screen (the image above is a snip I took of my screen saver), but my favorite use of this tool is to grab a chunk of redlined text from MS Word or part of a PDF of page proof to paste into an e-mail when communicating with a writer. If you’ve ever tried to paste actual redlining into an e-mail, you know that even if the results look good at your end (unlikely), they’re completely unpredictable at the other end. Likewise trying to grab just part of a PDF without jumping through a lot of hoops.

Snipping is much faster. Here’s how to do it:

—Find something you'd like to snap a picture of on your screen—let’s say a paragraph of tracked changes—and make sure it’s the front-most window on your screen.

—Locate the Snipping Tool in the Windows Start menu (use the search box if necessary) and choose it.

—When it opens, your screen will dim and your cursor will turn into crosshairs.

—Drag the crosshairs to highlight the area you want to snip. (If you don’t like the first result, click New in the Snipping Tool box and it will let you start over. To abandon the tool at any point, press the Esc key.)

Once you have your snippet, it stays on your clipboard until you paste it somewhere (or until you copy something else, whichever comes first). If you think you’ll need that snippet again, you can save it in various formats.

A disadvantage to snipping is that the resulting image, while stable and uneditable, is sometimes a little fuzzy. It helps to grab the image by one corner and shrink it a bit. Here’s an image I grabbed from a Word doc. I was able to paste it directly into another Word doc and into an email, but in order to use it in this post I had to save it and upload it. (TypePad is fussy that way, but you might be able to paste directly into your own blog).

Here’s a snip from a PDF of some page proofs:

 

Not too bad, eh? I won’t claim that this is the right tool for every kind of image capture, but whenever you need a quick and easy screen-grab, it might be just the thing. Tip: Once you find the tool and open it, it will appear in your taskbar. Right-click on its taskbar box and choose “Pin this program to taskbar” to keep it handy.

Comments

[Yawningdogblog.wordpress.com]

I had no idea bout this either! How useful. I'm definitely going to pin it once I find it.

I'm not sure if this would work or if it even matters in 7, but in many graphics programs, when you want to resize a crop, holding down the Shift key while grabbing a corner keeps the aspect ratio correct.

[Cyndil Smith]

The snipping tool can capture anything on your screen (the image above is a snip I took of my screen saver),

I doubt you were able to snap a shot of your screen saver! Betting you meant desktop.

Tip: Once you find the tool and open it, it will appear in your taskbar. Right-click on its taskbar box and choose “Pin this program to taskbar” to keep it handy.

Pinning something to your taskbar when it is already in your taskbar? I believe the first use of the word should be replaced with "start menu"

[Cyndil Smith]

oh my, the formatting didn't translate at all! this is what I get for not using the "preview" feature. please pretend that I used quotation marks...

also, the last sentence of my previous comment should read, "I believe the *final* use of the word should be..."

[Carol Saller]

Cyndil, thanks for clarifying. I did mean desktop. But the rest is as I intended. Any open program will present a box in the taskbar, but once you close that application, the box will go away. If you click in the box while the program is open, you get the "Pin to taskbar" option. You'll see--when you close the application, an icon will remain in the taskbar for future use.

[Sara Austin]

NB, the mac version: Command+Control+Shift+3: take a screenshot of the entire screen (screens if multiple monitors), and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
Command+Control+Shift+4, then select an area: takes a screenshot of selection and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
Command+Control+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window and saves it to the clipboard for pasting
Sara

[Lillie]

Thank you for this great tip. I had no idea this little tool existed.

[Rex Miller]

Thank you for answering so many of my questions, along with a few I hadn’t even thought of. And it is very difficult to find computer network technicians.

Onward!