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How to take screenshot on Windows laptop and PC: 2 simple ways

Taking screenshots is one of the most common things we do on our smartphones. Be it taking a snap of a meme or chat or even something that we want to save forever, taking screenshots on phones is easy but not so much in a PC or a laptop running on Windows.

Not a lot of people know that Windows users have a lot of options to take screenshots of a full page or just a particular part of the screen. The quickest method to take screenshots on Windows is through the ‘prt sc’ button, but that captures the entire page, which then users need to crop using editing tools. What if you want to take a screenshot of a particular part of the page? Well, there is another way to do that as well.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to taking screenshots on a Windows laptop or PC. Note: These are the two simplest ways to capture screenshots on a Windows machine.

How to take a screenshot on a Windows laptop with the PrtScn

The easiest way to take the screenshot of your window is by simply pressing the “Print Screen” button labeled as “PrtScn” on your keyword. It is located on the right side of the top row between or near the Function keys. In some keywords it’s just near the delete button.

Open the screen you want to take a screenshot of.

Tap the “PrtScn” button.

The screenshot will be copied automatically on your keyboard.

The PrtScn key copies the screenshot of the entire screen to the clipboard, so you can paste it anywhere.

Paste it in the desired file or just save it by pasting it in the drawing tool.

Press Alt + PrtScn to copy the active window to the clipboard and paste it into another program.

Press the Windows key + PrtScn to save the entire screen as an image file.

Notably, you might need to press the Function key on some keyboards, especially laptops, in order to activate the Print Screen feature (just hold the Function key and then press PrtScn).

How to take screenshots on Windows laptop with Snipping Tool

For the Microsoft Windows Snipping tool is much more flexible to take screenshots. It allows users to select the desired portion of the screen and not the entire page. Follow these steps to use it:

Go to the start button and find the Snipping tool.

Click on the “Mode” drop down and choose the shape of the screenshot you want to take. Users can select from rectangular to any free-form shape.

Now click on ‘New’ and your screen will freeze. Drag your mouse to select the desired portion of your screen to be snipped.

The selected position will appear in the snipping tool window.

You can edit your screenshot using available tools in the snipping tool window.

Either copy the screenshot to paste it on another window or save it.

To save your snip, click on “File” and then click on “Save As” to save it to the desired location.

You can also press “Ctrl+S” to save your screenshot.

— ENDS —

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