Many times we want to take a picture of our screen in our laptop, but it is not as easy as in the mobile phones. You might find a lot of tools online, but one of the best tools can be found in the windows system itself: the snipping tool. In this blog, we will learn how to use snipping tool
The snipping is one of the best utility tools that can be found in the Windows package. Not only do they clip the screen and help you sketch, but also they can help with high definition editing of the taken snaps. To get a closer look, first type the snipping tool in the search bar and click on the app.
Now depending on your windows version you might get a screen of snipping tools or snip and sketch. To start with click on the windows icon and type Snipping Tool.
How to use Snipping Tool?
To take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool, click the down arrow to the right of the “New” button.
You’ll see four choices here:
- Free-form Snip. This snip lets you draw any shape with your mouse pointer and then takes a screenshot of the selected area.
- Rectangular Snip. This snip lets you draw a rectangle with your pointer and then takes a screenshot of the rectangular selection.
- Window Snip. This snip lets you click any open window to take a screenshot of the visible part of the window. This means that if some of the content of the window is off-screen, the off-screen portion will not be captured.
- Full-screen Snip. This snip lets you take a screenshot of your entire display. If you have multiple monitors, the contents of all your monitors will be captured.
Note that when the menu is open, one of the selections will have a black dot next to it. This indicates the default type of screenshot the Snipping Tool will take if you just click the “New” button instead of opening its drop-down menu. The default selection will always be the last type of screenshot you performed.
If you’ve selected a type of snip and then changed your mind, you can always click the “Cancel” button at any time before actually taking the screenshot to return to the Snipping Tool window.
Take a Delayed Screenshot
Until Windows 10, the Snipping Tool remained unchanged since it was introduced in Windows Vista. In Windows 10, the Snipping Tool has all the same features as before, but also adds the ability to take a delayed screenshot. If you click the down arrow next to the “Delay” button, you’ll see that you can pick a number between 0 and 5. This number represents how many seconds the Snipping Tool will wait between the time you click “New” and the time the actual screenshot is taken. This gives you time to do things like open menus in a window, since when you click over to the Snipping Tool menus in other windows are likely to close.
Note that just like with the “New” menu, the default choice has a black dot, indicating what time will be used if you just click the “Delay” button instead of using its drop-down menu.
Work with a Screenshot After Capturing It
After you capture any kind of screenshot using the Snipping Tool, it opens in an editing window. The Snipping Tool editor allows you to edit and annotate the screenshot. You also have several new options on the toolbar. The “New” and “Delay” buttons return you to the regular Snipping Tool window so that you can take more screenshots.
Click the “Save” button to save the image to disk, the “Copy” button to copy the image to the Clipboard, or the “Email” button to open a new email message with the image already attached.
To the right of those buttons, you’ll see a few annotation tools. The Pen tool lets you draw on the image in different colors. Click the “Pen” button and then draw whatever you like on the image. To change the color of the Pen, click the down arrow on the “Pen” button and select a color.
On the drop-down menu, you can also choose “Customize” to access more colors, as well as change the thickness and tip style of your pen.
Click the “Highlighter” button to highlight any part of the image with a thick, transparent yellow line. Unfortunately, yellow is the only color the highlighter offers.
And finally, the Eraser tool turns your cursor into an eraser that lets you remove annotations you’ve made. It doesn’t work quite like the eraser you might find in other image editing apps. The Snipping Tool eraser will not erase any part of your original captured screenshot. You also can’t use it to erase portions of your annotations.
But this doesn’t make the snipping tool any less. It still is one of the most powerful tools that can be deployed for snapping the screen and editing it.
