Windows: Capturing a Screenshot

Want to capture a shot of your computer screen and send it to someone? There are a lot of ways to do this, but this might be the easiest:

This step should be pretty self-explanatory! Open up a blank Word or Excel file (either one will do). Alternately, if you're sending your screenshot to someone, open up a new email message in Outlook. Since Outlook actually uses MS Word as its word processor, anything you can do in Word, you can do in Outlook — and that includes capturing and editing screenshots.)

Again — nothing tough here. Simply pull up the screen you wish to capture, resizing or relocating it as necessary to show/hide any portions you wish. (You'll also be able to do some tweaking of the "captured" image later, if necessary.)

For those who might be unfamiliar, the PRINT SCREEN button is typically located in the upper right portion of your keyboard. Pressing this button "captures" the current screen and saves it on Windows' clipboard (temporary) memory.

Select the new Word or Excel file you created, and get ready ...

Put your cursor somewhere in the blank Word/Excel file. Right-click and PASTE...

...the screenshot into the document. It should appear instantly!

Both Word and Excel offer tools which allow users to resize and otherwise edit images that you place inside these files. Open up the "Picture" toolbar (VIEW → TOOLBARS → PICTURE) if it doesn't automatically appear.

The picture toolbar itself should look something like this...

... and of which the most useful tool is probably CROP:

Save your new Word or Excel file — with the screenshot(s) now inside — and that should do it!