How to print to screen

How to Screenshot on Windows 10

Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times and Reader’s Digest, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek. Read more.

Justin Duino is the Reviews Director at How-To Geek (and LifeSavvy Media as a whole). He has spent the last decade writing about Android, smartphones, and other mobile technology. In addition to his written work, he has also been a regular guest commentator on CBS News and BBC World News and Radio to discuss current events in the technology industry. Read more.

By taking a screenshot, you can capture an image of your entire display—or just an area of it. Windows 10 has a variety of built-in tools for easily capturing a screenshot, and we’ve also got some even more powerful third-party tools to recommend.

Update: Did you update to Windows 11? Don’t worry, taking a screenshot on Windows 11 is easy.

Take a Screenshot with Print Screen (PrtScn)

The Print Screen key on your keyboard can take a screenshot. Depending on the keyboard shortcut you use, you can save the screenshot as a PNG image file or copy it to your clipboard so you can paste it into any application.

The prtscn key is usually found between the F12 key and Scroll Lock key on the top row of your keyboard. It may be labeled something like “PrtScn,” “PrntScrn,” or “Print Scr” instead. On full-size keyboards, look above the Insert key.

On laptop keyboards, the Print Screen key may be combined with another key, but it will be located in that general area of the keyboard. You may have to press your laptop’s “Function” or “Fn” key while using the shortcuts here.

hafizi/Shutterstock.com

Save Your Screenshot as a File

Press Windows+Print Screen to save a screenshot as a file. In other words, press and hold the Windows logo key and tap the Print Screen key, which may be labeled something like PrtScrn or PrtScn. (On a laptop keyboard, you may have to use Windows+Fn+PrtScn.)

Tip: If you’re using a Windows 10 tablet or 2-in-1 convertible PC without a keyboard, press Power+Volume Down to take a screenshot. If you see a Windows logo button on your tablet’s display, press Windows+Volume Down instead.

The screen will dim for a moment, providing visual confirmation. The screenshot will appear as a PNG file in a folder named “Screenshots” inside your user account’s “Pictures” folder. If you take multiple screenshots, each will be automatically labeled with a number.

In other words, you will likely find your screenshot at the following location: C:\Users\NAME\Pictures\Screenshots

Note: Your screen will only flash while taking a screenshot if you have the “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing” setting enabled. To control whether or not your screen flashes, toggle this option.

Save a Screenshot to Your Clipboard

To copy an image of your screen to your clipboard, just press the Print Screen key (or Fn+Print Screen on some laptops).

Windows will save an image of your screen to the clipboard. You can paste it into almost any application: An image editor, a word processor, or anything else that supports images. Just select Edit > Paste or press Ctrl+V to paste as you normally would.

Tip: If you have Windows 10’s clipboard history enabled, Windows will remember the last few things you copied to your clipboard—including screenshots.

Save a Screenshot of a Single Window to Your Clipboard

To capture a screenshot of just one single window instead of your entire screen, press Alt+Print Screen. (On some laptops, you may need to press Alt+Fn+Print Screen instead.)

Windows will save an image of the current window to your clipboard, so be sure to select the window you want to capture first. You can either click somewhere inside the window or use Alt+Tab to focus it.

Use Snip & Sketch to Take Screenshots

Windows 10 has a built-in Snip & Sketch tool that provides more powerful screenshot options. You can use it to take a screenshot of a specific region of your screen, capture a screenshot on a delay, or annotate your screenshots.

Note: Windows 10 still contains the classic Snipping Tool, which was introduced in Windows Vista. You can still use the Snipping Tool if you’re familiar with it. However, it’s being phased out in favor of the modern Snip & Sketch tool. Snip & Sketch has all the same options as the Snipping Tool—and more.

Take a Screenshot of Part of Your Screen

To quickly take a screenshot with Snip & Sketch, press Windows+Shift+S. Your screen will appear grayed out and your mouse will transform into a crosshair.

You will see a bar of several buttons near the top of your screen. Select the function you want. From left to right, here’s what the buttons do:

Snip & Sketch will remember your last used option when you use the keyboard shortcut to open it.

Annotate or Crop a Screenshot

When you take a screenshot, you will get a notification saying the screenshot was copied to your clipboard. You can paste it into any other application that supports image files. (Use Edit > Paste or Ctrl+V to paste.)

If the notification goes away before you can click it, you will find the notification in Windows 10’s Action Center.

For more options, click the notification. This will open the Snip & Sketch window with options for writing on, highlighting, erasing, and cropping areas of the image.

There’s also a “Save” button, which will let you save your screenshot as an image file from here.

(The interface will vary according to window size. With a larger Snip & Sketch window, all the options are on the top toolbar. If you resize the window and make it smaller, some of the options will move to a bottom toolbar.)

Take a Delayed Screenshot

In some cases, taking a screenshot on a delay can help you capture a menu or other interface element that won’t appear unless you’re interacting with it. Snip & Sketch can take a screenshot on a three or ten-second delay.

To find this option, you will need to open the Snip & Sketch application window directly. Click the Start button (or press the Windows Key), search for “Snip,” and launch the “Snip & Sketch” application shortcut.

To the right of the “New” button in the Snip & Sketch window, click the down arrow and select either “Snip in 3 seconds” or “Snip in 10 seconds.”

Tip: If you click menu > Options in the Snip & Sketch window, you will find options to open Snip & Sketch when you press Print Screen, choose whether or not Snip & Sketch automatically copies screenshots to your clipboard, and add an outline around your snips (screenshots).

Capture a Screenshot (or Video) With the Game Bar

Windows 10 includes a feature named the Xbox Game Bar. Despite the name, it’s really more of a gaming-focused overlay with a variety of features. It’s particularly useful for taking screenshots of PC games.

By default, Windows+Alt+Print Screen will take a screenshot of the current game or desktop application with the Game Bar. (On some laptops, you may have to press Windows+Alt+Fn+Print Screen.)

You’ll see a “Screenshot saved” notification, and you can click that notification to see your Game Bar screenshots. You can also press Windows+G to open the Game Bar.

To configure the Game Bar, head to Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar. From here, you can enable or disable the Game Bar feature and customize the keyboard shortcuts that perform these actions. So, if nothing happens when you press these keys, check to see if this feature is enabled in Settings.

Screenshots you take with this tool are saved to C:\Users\NAME\Videos\Captures. (Yes, even screenshots are shared to the Videos folder.)

The Game Bar also lets you record videos of your Windows 10 screen. You can even use it to record videos of your desktop or any other application. You can record much more than just games. The video file will be saved to the C:\Users\NAME\Videos\Captures folder in H.264 MP4 format.

Take Screenshots With Greenshot, a Free Application

Our favorite free screenshot tool for Windows—aside from the tools built into Windows 10 itself, which are extremely capable—is Greenshot. It’s free and open-source, and it’s packed with additional features like customizable keyboard shortcuts.

Greenshot runs in your system tray where it provides useful options like “Capture Window From List,” which lets you quickly capture a screenshot of any running window from a context menu.

Take Screenshots the Easy Way With SnagIt, a Powerful Tool

Windows 10 is packed with useful screenshot features and Greenshot is a powerful tool, but each of the above methods has its own limitations. If you take a lot of screenshots and want more flexibility and options, you might want something even more powerful.

If you don’t mind spending a few dollars on a screenshot tool, SnagIt by Techsmith is an incredibly powerful screenshot application. It makes taking screenshots easy and has features for targeting specific windows and capturing the full text of scrolling windows like web pages in your browser.

SnagIt can also record videos of your screen, turn them into animated GIFs (if you like), add video from your webcam and audio from your microphone, and help you easily trim those video clips so you can only include what’s important.

Beyond that, SnagIt can extract text from screenshots, annotate them, replace text in the screenshots, and do pretty much else you imagine a screenshot tool should be able to do. It’s a great application that we recommend, especially if you need to take a lot of screenshots.

TechSmith offers a free trial of SnagIt so you can see if it meets your needs before buying it. If you take a lot of screenshots, we think you’ll have a hard time going back to the more barebones tools built into Windows.

Thinking about switching to a different computer? Taking a screenshot on a Mac or capturing something on your Chromebook is not much different than grabbing an image on your Windows 10 machine.

How to take a screenshot on a Windows PC or laptop

Screenshots can be helpful at work, essential for record-keeping, or requested by tech support to better illustrate a bug you’re experiencing.

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What You Need

There are a number of ways to accomplish this simple task in Windows, and we’ve detailed each of the available methods below. And yes, each of these methods work just as well in Windows 11 as in Windows 10.

Method 1: The Snipping Tool

The best native alternative method is the Snipping Tool. This built-in screen-capture utility works well enough, but it’s not the most robust or versatile when it comes to saving a snapshot. However, it is a utility that allows users to better define and capture portions of their desktop display as a screenshot. Here’s how to use it.

Step 1: To start, just type snipping tool into the taskbar’s search box and select the resulting app. If you’re on Windows 10, once it opens, you’ll see a notification that it’s “moving to a new home” in a later update. Don’t worry. Even in Windows 11, it’s still an available tool, but Microsoft encourages you to use Snip & Sketch or the Win + Shift + S keyboard shortcut.

Step 2: With the Snipping Tool opened, click the Mode button to expand its menu. You’ll find four screen-capturing options: Draw a window (Free-Form Snip), box in an area (Rectangular Snip), capture the current window (Window Snip), and capture the entire screen (Full-Screen Snip).

On Windows 11, the design of the tool is different. You’ll see new, rectangle mode, and no delay when you open Snipping Tool. These buttons do the same as we’ve previously described. However, to get to the window, full-screen mode, and free-form mode, you’ll need to click the down arrow next to rectangle mode

Step 3: Note that if you use the Free-Form and Rectangular Snip modes, the screen turns white. Once you begin defining the screenshot space, the white tint clears within that area. If you’re capturing a specific window (Window Snip), your screen tints white except for the contents within the window you select.

Step 4: The Snipping Tool includes a delay feature, too. It can wait between one to five seconds before it snaps an awesome screenshot, so you can capture a precise moment in a video or animation.

Once you capture a screenshot, the Snipping Tool interface expands to display your screenshot. You can perform light edits like using a pen or highlighter and erasing something.

Step 5: When you’re done editing within the Snipping Tool, click File in the upper-left corner and then click the Save As option listed on the drop-down menu.

Method 2: Snip & Sketch

Snip & Sketch is Microsoft’s newer version of its snipping utility. You can access this tool from the Start menu or by typing Win + Shift + S on your keyboard. Here’s how to use it.

Step 1: If you use the keyboard shortcut, the screen darkens and renders a five-button toolbar along the top. You have the same functions found in the older Snipping Tool, but it doesn’t save your screenshots as a file. Instead, the image goes straight to your clipboard first.

Step 2: You’ll also see a desktop notification that informs you that the image has been copied to the clipboard. This same notification gives you the option to edit the captured image within the Snip & Sketch app. You can access this latter option by clicking on the Desktop Notification itself. If you click on the notification, the screenshot loads within the app, allowing you to crop the image and apply a pen, pencil, highlighter, and eraser.

Step 3: If you load the Snip & Sketch app instead, click the drop-down arrow next to the New button in the top-left corner and select Snip Now in the drop-down menu. The screen darkens, and the five-button toolbar appears. Take your snip, and your desired image should automatically load in the Snip & Sketch app, ready for you to edit.

Step 4: When you’re ready, save the image anywhere on your PC by clicking the Disk-Style button. If you want to edit and save the screenshot using any installed image editor, click the Three-Dot icon on the toolbar and select the Open With option on the drop-down menu.

Method 3: Keyboard shortcuts (PrintScreen)

Windows provides six methods to capture your desktop as an image using keyboard shortcuts. Three are based on the Print Screen (PrtScn) key, while the remaining three require the Windows (Win) key.

On external keyboards, you’ll find a dedicated PrtScn key located in the upper-right corner. The Win key typically resides on the lower-left, between the Control (Ctrl) and Alternate (Alt) keys. It sports the Windows logo, so it’s hard to miss.

On laptops, the Print Screen command may be combined with another function on a single key. In this case, you must press the Function (Fn) key in addition to the Print Screen key.

Here’s a breakdown of the six screen-capture commands:

Print Screen (PrtScn): Captures the entire screen. If you have more than one display, this function captures everything shown across all connected displays as a single image. By default, this method does not save your image as a file, but merely sends the captured image to the Windows clipboard.

Alt + Print Screen: Captures a single window. Be sure to highlight the target window first, such as a document or browser, before pressing these two keys (or three on certain laptops). By default, this method does not save your image as a file but just sends the image contained in the capture window to the clipboard.

Win + Print Screen: Captures the entire screen. The difference here is that Windows saves the image as a file. By default, it’s sent to C:Users Pictures>Screenshots or C:Users OneDrive>Pictures>Screenshots on your PC.

Win + Shift + S: Captures a screenshot using the built-in screenshot tool called Snip & Sketch. The screen dims and provides four choices on a small toolbar (not including the Exit icon): Rectangular Snip, Freeform Snip, Window Snip, and Fullscreen Snip. This tool does not save captures as an image, but merely sends them to the clipboard. We expand on this later in the guide.

Win + G: Opens the Xbox Game Bar. Click the Capture button and then the Camera icon, and this tool will save an image to C:Users>(user name)>Videos>Captures by default.

Win + Alt + Print Screen: Captures only the active window. This command saves an image to C:Users>(user name)>Videos>Captures by default.

In some cases, the screen flickers or dims to signify that Windows grabbed a screenshot. If this doesn’t happen, open File Explorer and head to their respective default locations to see if Windows saved your image.

Method 4: Using OneDrive

If you’re using OneDrive, you can save screenshots to the cloud so they’re accessible from every device. It does not save screenshots by default, however. Instead, you must click on the Cloud icon parked next to the System Clock (or in the Hidden Icons menu marked with an upward-facing arrow).

If this icon isn’t appearing, you may need to open the OneDrive app first and sign in to your account. After clicking on the Cloud icon, select Help & Settings, and click Settings on the pop-up menu. Next, click the Backup tab in the resulting pop-up window and check the box under Screenshots. Then click OK.

In this case, you can press the first two Print Screen commands to automatically save an image file to OneDrive. You won’t see the screen flicker or dim for these commands — you’ll receive a notification instead. Be sure to sync the Screenshots folder if you want to access the images on your PC.

If you used a method that saves your screenshot locally as a file, you can locate and view the image using the Photos app. If everything looks great, you can move it, attach it to an email, upload it to the cloud, and so on. However, if you need to crop an image — especially those taken on PCs with more than one screen — you have three native tools at your disposal: Paint, Paint 3D, and Photos.

Any of these applications will allow you to quickly paste in your selected image and then crop it down — or save it as a different file format.

How to take a screenshot on other devices

If you’re trying to learn how to take a screenshot on a Mac instead of a Windows PC, taking a screenshot is super simple as well. There are a number of methods to get it done, but the easiest involves using some handy keyboard shortcuts. Command + Shift + 3 will capture the whole screen, while *Command + Shift + 4 *will let you draw out a selection box.

This same method applies for Windows tablets, like taking a screenshot on a Microsoft Surface 2-in-1.

It’s a similar story on Chromebooks. In order to take a screenshot on a Chromebook, again, there are a few different methods, but the easiest is a keyboard shortcut. Control + Show Windows keys will capture the whole screen, while Control + Shift + Show Windows will let you capture a selected area.

How to screenshot on Windows PCs: Methods To Take Screenshots on Windows 10 and 11

It’s common to want to take a screenshot on a PC. If you’re not using a third-party tool, you can do it manually. The most obvious way is to Hit the Prt Sc button/or Print Scrn button (print screen key), which will grab the entire PC screen. You do this when using Windows OS and press the Print Screen key (located in the top right of the keyboard) to take a full PC screenshot and copy the screen’s image to the clipboard or save it in the screenshots folder.

But there are more screen capture methods of taking screenshots on Windows.

This article will cover how to screenshot Windows 10 and all the steps you need to carry out. We’ll also answer some critical questions that most users ask:

In the FAQ, we also show you how to take a screenshot on Windows 11.

Windows 10 has many ways to achieve this, be it taking a screenshot of the entire screen, a particular window, or a part of the screen. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

How to screenshot on Windows 10: easy tricks

The following methods show you how to screenshot on windows to capture full or minimized screenshots:

Method 1. Use the Print Screen key/shortcut

The easiest way to take a PC/computer screenshot on Windows 10 is the Print Screen key (Prtscn). This button is usually located at the top row of the keyboard, near the Function (F#) keys. To capture your entire screen and automatically save the screenshot, tap the Windows key + Print Screen key. Your screen will briefly go dim to indicate that you’ve just taken a screenshot, and the screenshot will be saved to the Pictures > Screenshots folder. Let’s look at this in detail below:

To capture your entire screenshot on Windows, simply:

On some keyboards, you might need to press the Function (Fn) key and the Print Screen button to trigger the screen capture, i.e., Fn + PrtScn button/or Print Scrn (print screen)

The print screen key will capture the entire screen and save it on the clipboard. Check the notifications on the lower right corner of your screen to see the saved screenshots.

Note: if you have more than one display, it will be captured into a single image.

Method 2: Alt + Prt Sc (print screen button) screen capture

If you want to save the image as a file, you can also do it with a keyboard shortcut.

Method 3: Windows logo + Print Screen screen capture

If you have issues with the Print Screen button not working properly, check How to Fix the Print Screen Not Working on Windows 10.

Method 4. Use the Snipping Tool to take a screenshot

The snipping tool is the best way to screenshot on Windows if you want to customize, annotate, or share your screen captures. The Snipping Tool app is an excellent tool for taking screenshots. It has been around since Windows Vista. You can use it to;

However, note that taking screenshots using a snipping tool does not automatically save the screenshot as an image file, but it has the option to do so.

Here’re the steps to use the snip and snipping tool to take a PC screenshot:

Once you have taken the screenshot, you have many options to

Method 5. Using the Snip & Sketch app to take a screenshot.

The Snip & Sketch app (or snip sketch tool) replaced the Snipping Tool on Windows and is one of the drawing tools Windows users can use. Snip & Sketch app is the best way to screenshot on Windows if you’re looking to customize, annotate, or share your screen captures.

Summary: With the snip sketch tool, t ake a snapshot to copy words or images from all or parts of your PC screen or take screenshots on the windows operating system. Open screen Snipping Tool to make changes or notes, then save, and share. You can capture any of the following types of snips using the snip sketch tool:

Draw a free-form shape around an object.

Drag the cursor around an object to form a rectangle.

How to Print Screen on a Mac

What is known as “Print Screen” in the Windows world is called screen captures or screen shots in Mac OS X. You’ve probably noticed there is no ‘Print Screen’ button on a Mac keyboard, this is to both simplify the keyboard and also because it’s just unnecessary. On the Mac, instead of hitting a “Print Screen” button, you’ll hit one of several keyboard combination shortcuts to perform a specific action, depending on the exact screen capture action you want taken. This is both easier and much more powerful, given that there are ultimately six unique options to perform variations of the screen print on Mac.

How to Print Screen to a File on the Desktop in Mac OS X

The basic functionality of taking a screen shot of a window or desktop in Mac OS X takes an complete image capture of the desktop and all open windows and running apps and dumps it to a unique file on the Mac desktop. Each keyboard shortcut will use the pressing of the Command and Shift keys concurrently as the basis for execution, followed by a number or another key:

Because this approach effectively ‘prints’ the screen to the desktop as a unique file containing the screen capture, it removes the unnecessary step of having to paste the screen shot into another application and then save it manually. If you’d rather not save the file to the desktop though, you can have it copied to the clipboard instead, which can then be pasted elsewhere just like what happens in the Windows world.

How to Print Screen to the Clipboard on a Mac

Saving the captured image directly to the clipboard functions a lot more like the Print Screen feature in the Windows world. If you want to do the Mac equivalent of Print Screen, storing the image in the clipboard so that you can paste it into another app or document, these are the commands you’d want to use instead:

Remember that the Command key on some older Mac keyboards has an Apple logo on it like this , but newer Mac keyboards will simply say ‘command’ on them along with the. The command key is located next to the spacebar. Here is what the primary Print Screen equivalent looks like on a standard Apple keyboard, all keys in red should be pressed simultaneously:

One final thing to note here involves multiple monitors; screen shots that aim to copy the entire screen will copy all screens if the Mac is using multiple displays. That does not apply to the rectangular drawn box method, or to choosing a shot of a specific window rather than the full screen.

So again, re-emphasizing the shortcut keys: Command+Shift+3 will print the screen to a file on the Mac desktop, while Command+Control+Shift+3 will print the screen to the clipboard just like the Windows function works. Remember the difference between the two, and use which works best for you.

This article is really aimed at newcomers to the Mac platform, particularly those that are migrating over from the Windows world. It’s not unusual to hear people ask “Why is there no Print Screen button for Mac?”, but the answer is simply that the Mac offer more powerful options that go far beyond just pressing a single button on a keyboard. Despite the terminology of ‘printing the screen’ being born from the Windows PC world, it does still apply to Mac OS even if it’s technically mislabeled, but with so many people switching to new Mac’s its no wonder the terminology is still prevalent. The good news is once you learn how to perform the print screen equivalent by capturing the desktop with a keystroke, they quickly understand why there isn’t a need to over complicate the keyboard with unnecessary buttons, plus get to experience the benefits of just having more options and control over what ends up being saved and how.

Recent switcher? Two other helpful tips for recent Mac switchers regard running Internet Explorer for Mac through various tricks, and understanding the Mac Task Manager known as Activity Monitor.

Copy the window or screen contents

When using Office programs with Windows, there are two ways to copy the contents of what you see on your screen (commonly referred to as a «screen shot» or «screen capture»). You can use the Snipping Tool or the PRINT SCREEN key.

Using the Snipping Tool

The Windows Snipping Tool captures all or part of your PC screen. After you capture a snip, it’s automatically copied to the Snipping Tool window. From there you can edit, save, or share the snip.

Using the PRINT SCREEN key

Pressing PRINT SCREEN captures an image of your entire screen and copies it to the Clipboard in your computer’s memory. You can then paste (CTRL+V) the image into a document, email message, or other file.

Where is the PRINT SCREEN button?

The PRINT SCREEN key is usually located in the upper right corner of your keyboard. The key looks similar to the following:

The text you see on your keyboard might be PrtSc, PrtScn, or PrntScrn. The other text on the Print Screen key is usually SysRq.

Copy only the image of the active window

The active window is the window that you are currently working in. Only one window can be active at a time.

Click the window that you want to copy.

Press ALT+PRINT SCREEN.

Paste (CTRL+V) the image into an Office program or other application.

Copy the entire image on the screen

Open everything you want to copy and position it the way you want.

Press PRINT SCREEN.

Paste (CTRL+V) the image into an Office program or other application.

Modify the image

Paste (CTRL+V) the image into a drawing application, such as Microsoft Paint, and by using the tools available in your drawing application, you can add circles around text or images you want to highlight or crop anything that you don’t want to appear in the image.

For more complex modifications, it is recommended that you use the Snipping Tool to capture your screen shot.