Taking a Full Screen Screenshot
1. Press the "Print Screen" (Prt Sc) key on your keyboard. This will capture an image of your entire screen and copy it to the clipboard. The dimensions of the image will be the same as that of your desktop resolution.
- The Print screen button in your system can be labeled either as "PrtScn", "Prnt Scrn" or "Print Scr". On most desktop keyboards, the button is usually found between F12 and Scroll Lock. On laptop keyboards, you may have to press the Fn or "Function" key to access "Print Screen".
- Note that you will not receive any confirmation that the screenshot has been taken.
2. Paste the screenshot. Once you have made the screenshot, you will need to paste it to an editor in order to see it. The most common way to paste it is into a Paint file. This will allow you to save it as an image file(bitmap) that can be transferred to others.
- Open Paint from the Accessories section in your Start menu. With a new blank canvas open, press Ctrl + V to paste the image onto the canvas. You can also open the Edit menu and select Paste, or right-click on the canvas and select Paste.
- Click File, then Save to set the name and file type of the image. The most common file types are JPG and PNG. The recommended format for screenshots is PNG, due to the high quality and small file size.
- You can also paste the screenshot into other programs, such as Word or into the body of an email. Simply open the program that you want to paste the image into and press Ctrl + V.
3. Save a full-screen screenshot directly to a file in Windows 8. When you press the Windows key + Prt Sc, you will save a full-screen screenshot directly to a file without having to paste it into another program first. The file is saved to the Screenshots folder in your Pictures folder. If the Screenshots folder does not exist, Windows will create one.
- The picture is saved in PNG format.
- Screenshots are automatically labeled "Screenshot", and a number will appear in parentheses for each consecutive screenshot.