Creating Screen Shots
Throughout the Digital RV book, I provided screen shots to demonstrate points, or to use as a “how to guide” for setting up and using software. Making screen shots, and using them for your own purposes can be helpful when on the road, at home, or anywhere for that matter.
If you’re a regular computer user, there are moments when things don’t work right. Maybe a web site is not functioning properly. Or you’re receiving a strange error message, and tech support insists you’re not getting that message (there’s one I’m familiar with). Well, using a screen shot you can capture an image of the problem, and send along an e-mail with the screen shot to demonstrate your point.
I once had to use this method with Blogger.com when I could no longer upload photos. The support e-mail I received insisted I had a “photo upload button” on my window, and could post photos with it. Problem, there was no button on my bar any longer. It used to be there, but wasn’t now. Weird, but true. When I sent them the image of the problem they quickly responded and resolved the problem. Often, seeing is believing.
So, how can you make your own screen shots? Easy for both Windows & Macintosh. This will take you mere moments to learn.
On a Windows system, take a look at your keyboard. On many Windows laptops there will be a key on the top row, near the right side of the board with Insert and Prt Sc. Usually these are noted in different colors. On a desktop keyboard there will be a Prt Sc key off to the right as well, usually upper right corner. Clicking the Function (Fn) key combined with the Prt Sc key will take a snap shot of your current screen.
Once you’ve taken the snap shot, open your favorite photo editing program (like Adobe’s Photo Shop Elements), and create a new document. Often an option will be to create the image from the “clip board.” That’s where your snapshot is saved. Once you create the new document from the clip board, or paste it from the Edit menu, you’ll have an image of the screen you were viewing. Now you can save it, and e-mail it to the tech support person who told you no such error could come from their software!
On Macintosh there are many ways to copy a screen image as well. My favorite allows me to select a specific part of my screen. Simply hold the Open Apple Key, the Shift Key, the Control Key, and press 4. Yup, 3 keys all togehter, then hit 4. Once you’ve done this your cursor will turn into a Target. Simply click and drag the target around the image you want to capture. You’ll hear a “photo” sound once you’ve unclicked. The image is now on your clipboard. Like Windows users, open your favorite photo program, new document, and paste the image either by making the new document from clip board, or pasting it from the Edit Menu.
That’s the short and quick way to do it. There are many other ways for both systems. To learn more just look up “Screen Capture” in your system’s help menu, or do a Google Search.
The image above is a screen shot of this blog column as I was putting it together. See, you can even use a screen shot to demonstrate the usefulness of screen shots. Pretty nifty, no?
