Capture my desktop??

Author
Discussion

cjs

Original Poster:

10,766 posts

252 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
In Windows XP, how do I capture/grab/take a picture of my desk top and save it? I need the shortcut keys if possible.

thanks

Tycho

11,644 posts

274 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
Printscreen key, open paint, paste and save. I think it defaults to a bmp though so change to a jpg or everyone you send it to will hate you.....

People used to send 4-5MB bmps to the company email list and you could hear the groans around the office as people recieved it and tried to open it before looking at the size.

twister

1,454 posts

237 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
Hit the PrintScreen key, open up whatever graphics utility you've got (use Paint - should be in the Accessories section of the start menu - if there's nothing better at hand), select the paste option, then save...

cjs

Original Poster:

10,766 posts

252 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
What is the print screen key? BTW I am running windows on a Macbook.

LordGrover

33,549 posts

213 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
Tycho said:
Printscreen key, open paint, paste and save. I think it defaults to a bmp though so change to a jpg or everyone you send it to will hate you.....

People used to send 4-5MB bmps to the company email list and you could hear the groans around the office as people recieved it and tried to open it before looking at the size.
Better yet, use .PNG for screen dumps - reserve .JPEG for colour photographs.

twister

1,454 posts

237 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
The PrintScreen key is the one just to the right of F12 on the keyboard attached to the PC we both assumed you were using... For the Mac, you can try one of the following:

Cmd+Shift+3
Fn+F11
Option+F11

If none of those work, and you don't mind having an extra window appear in your screengrab, then go into the Programs->Accessories->Acessibility section of the start menu, run the On-Screen Keyboard app, make sure it's set to "Enhanced Keyboard" under the Keyboard menu, then click the "psc" button...

...or, as a slightly tongue-in-cheek nod to the "buy a Mac" "advice" dished out by some of the more annoyingly smug holier-than-thou Mac users out there when a PC user asks for help, you could just buy a PC instead ;-)

tigger1

8,402 posts

222 months

Friday 7th December 2007
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twister said:
you could just buy a PC instead
rofl

Fetchez la vache

5,575 posts

215 months

Friday 7th December 2007
quotequote all
tigger1 said:
twister said:
you could just buy a PC instead
rofl