As you can probably tell from my tutorials I take a lot of screenshots. I find them a brilliant way of showing someone what to do (or how to do it), especially if I’m on the phone to a client who doesn’t understand exactly what I’m talking about! So, how do I take a screenshot? I use an app called Snipping Tool. The good news is that you don’t have to download or install anything to use this app.  If you currently use Windows Vista, Windows 7 or 8 then this app is already there waiting for you to use it!

Click on the Start button and type snipping into the search bar…

Snipping Tool Search

You’ll see it brings up Snipping Tool under Programs – click this and it will open up the app…

Snipping Tool

If you click on the drop down arrow next to New, it lists the different types of snips you can do.  I tend to use Rectangular Snip the most, but you could also choose Free Form, Window, or Full Screen. The window snip will take a screenshot of the entire active window (not the screen), and the Full Screen snip will take a screenshot of everything.  Below is a screenshot of my control panel taken using the Rectangular snip – click New then just drag the cursor to what you want to select and release the mouse…

Rectangular Snip Screenshot

As soon as you let go of the mouse a new toolbar will appear at the top with some options.  You can use a pen to mark the screenshot or write notes directly onto it. Click on the drop down arrow next to the pen symbol and you can choose the colour of the pen, you can even customise your own…

Customise Pen Snipping Tool

You can also select the highlighter (which is what I use quite often), and if you mark something you shouldn’t have, or make a mistake, just choose the eraser and click on the mark to remove it…

Highlighter Snipping Tool

Once you’re happy with the result, you can then send it via email or you can save it to your computer. You can save as type PNG, GIF, JPEG or as a single file HTML file…

Email snipping tool

Once you’ve finished just close it and that’s it! The next time you want to use the Snipping Tool, just click on the Start button & it should now be listed, or maybe you could pin it to the taskbar so it’s always handy 🙂