How to take a screen­shot on Windows

In Windows, there are several ways to create screen­shots. You can do so with keyboard shortcuts, the in­te­grat­ed snipping tool, or using external screen­shot tools. We show you how it works.

In a nutshell: Create, save, and edit screen­shots in Windows.

Take a screen­shot of the entire screen and save it to the clipboard:

• [Print] key
• On some laptops instead of using just the [Print] key, you have to use a com­bi­na­tion of [Fn] + [PrtScn] instead
• Paste to the desired area using [Ctrl] + [V]

Take a screen­shot of the active window and save it to the clipboard:

• [Alt] + [Print]
• Paste into the desired area using [Ctrl] + [V]

Take a screen­shot of the area you’ve chosen and save it to the clipboard:

• [Windows] key + [Shift ⇧] + [S]
• Paste to the desired position with [Ctrl] + [V]

Take a screen­shot of the whole screen and save it directly:

• Key com­bi­na­tion [Windows] + [Print]
• Au­to­mat­i­cal­ly save as image file in the “Images > Screen­shots” folder path

Take a screen­shot of the active window and save it directly:

• Key com­bi­na­tion [Windows] + [Alt] + [Print]
• Au­to­mat­i­cal­ly save as an image file in the “Videos > Captures” folder path

Creating screen­shots on the Microsoft operating system is extremely simple: By pressing the [Print] key on your keyboard, you copy the current screen display to the clipboard. If you use two monitors at the same time, both screens are captured.

You’d prefer not to capture the entire screen, but just one window instead? First, select the window in question. Then, with the Windows screen­shot key com­bi­na­tion — [Alt] + [Print] — create a screen­shot. Your mouse pointer will not appear on the screen­shot ⁠— you’ll need to install an extra tool for this.

After pressing the print key, your screen­shot will be located on your clipboard. This is temporary storage that Windows uses to set aside elements that you’ve copied or cut (e.g. text sections that you’ve cut out and pasted in Word). From the clipboard, you can add your screen capture into a program, for example, Paint or an al­ter­na­tive to Paint. Open the min­i­mal­is­tic photo editing program and add the image from the clipboard. This can be done either using the menu list or with the key com­bi­na­tion [Ctrl] + [V].

If you want to capture your screen on Windows 11, Windows 10, or Windows 8, there are two available key com­bi­na­tions, which enable you to save the screen­shots locally:

1. By pressing the [Win] + [Print] keys si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, you create a screen­shot of the entire screen, which is saved directly into a new file. Windows saves this in PNG format and places it in the “Screen­shots” folder in the “Images” directory. The files are numbered in ascending order.
2. With the key com­bi­na­tion [Windows] + [Alt] + [Print] you take a photo of the active window. This is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly saved (also in PNG format) in the “Captures” folder in the “Videos” directory.

The print button function is useful, quick, and un­com­pli­cat­ed but it’s also very sim­plis­tic. So Microsoft in­tro­duced an ad­di­tion­al method for capturing your screen on Windows. The snipping tool is pre­in­stalled on the operating system and offers more options for cus­tomiz­ing the screen­shot to fit your needs. If you have the program open, you can select between various snipping types:

• Full-screen: This setting has the same function as the print button. Create a complete copy of the screen (or screens) with just one click.
• Window: If you select this type of snip, first decide on a window that you want to create a copy of. If you move over it with your mouse, it becomes clearly visible, while all other content is covered with a fog filter. Clicking on the window of your choice takes the screen­shot.
• Rec­tan­gu­lar: With this snipping type, you can select a free, rec­tan­gu­lar area for the screen­shot. If for example, you already know before you take the screen­shot that only a certain part of the screen is important, then you only need to save this part. With the mouse button pressed down, you can draw a frame. As soon as you release the mouse, the image is captured.
• Free-form: Even more freedom is given with this snipping type. With it, you can select a form freehand, and only take a screen­shot of this area. The quality of the form depends on how well you can draw with the mouse. With this type, the program also creates the screen­shot as soon as you let go of the mouse. If you haven’t looped entirely back to the starting point with the dragged frame, then the snipping tool au­to­mat­i­cal­ly completes the con­nec­tion between the starting and ending points using the shortest path.

Unlike screen­shots created with the print button, the snipping tool shows you the screen­shot right away. This way, you can im­me­di­ate­ly check whether it all looks as intended. If not, simply click on “New” and try again. As soon as you’re satisfied with the result, you can add markings directly to the screen­shot. Underline important parts with a pen, cross things out, or point something out with an arrow. With the text marker, you can draw attention directly to an important sentence or number.

In the last step you decide what to do with your screen­shot:

• Save: Click on “Save as” to open a window in which you can define the save location, file name, and file format. The available formats are PNG, GIF, and JPEG.
• Copy: The snipping tool also gives you the option to copy captured images to the clipboard. Just like with the print key, you can then paste your screen­shot into various ap­pli­ca­tions, such as a Word document.
• Send: You can also send your screen­shot as an email. For this, either paste the selection directly into a new email or send it as an at­tach­ment. You need to use a specific program for your email instead of the web version of your email provider.

If you create a screen­shot in Windows 10 with the snipping tool, you also have a time delay option. Like the self-timer of a camera, you can set a timer to delay the trigger of a screen­shot. You can use this time to change settings that are only visible for a short period of time, for example, or that require a key to be held.

Errors often occur, es­pe­cial­ly when creating screen­shots from other programs. If you’re trying to take a screen­shot of a video or a game, it often results in a com­plete­ly black screen. The reason for this, in many cases, is a conflict with the graphic card. Most of the time, though, the problem can be avoided. Sometimes it’s enough just to reduce the game from full screen to a windowed mode. Games or video playback programs fre­quent­ly have their own screen­shot function that you can activate with a hotkey.

But sometimes it occurs, for example with Netflix, that the provider of the software prevents the creation of screen­shots. In such cases, this has to do with copyright. The built-in copy pro­tec­tion tech­nol­o­gy, or digital rights man­age­ment (DRM), prevents copying of the image to protect the rights of the owner. If this is the cause of your problem when trying to take a screen­shot in Windows, then you will simply have to accept it.

While the snipping tool already offers more features than the simple key com­bi­na­tion for creating screen­shots on Windows, it can still be worth­while trying out some other software options. Screen­shot tools are es­pe­cial­ly rec­om­mend­able for users who use screen­shots pro­fes­sion­al­ly, or at least on a daily basis.

These screen­shot programs sometimes offer more editing options and ad­di­tion­al functions, such as automatic scrolling to display long websites in one picture or so-called screen­casts—the programs record a video of your desktop. This function is most popular for use in tutorials, since in such videos the creator can easily show their viewers what they need to do instead of trying to painstak­ing­ly explain it.

• ShareX: With the open-source software, you can also create screen­casts and GIF files.

• Screen­shot Captor: The slim tool can take pictures of auto-scroll as well as more than one monitor in­de­pen­dent­ly.

• Grabilla: The man­u­fac­tur­er of this screen­shot tool has made the software available on various platforms and also offers its own file hosting service.

• Monosnap: The software is quick and easy to use, yet still offers all of the important features.

• Duck­Cap­ture: In addition to the usual screen­shot functions, this tool also offers the pos­si­bil­i­ty to easily assemble multiple screen­shots into one big image.