Vista’s Snipping Tool is a cool little app that I use just about every day. Its purpose is to grab screen captures from anything within Vista. Unlike using ALT + PrintScreen which takes a snapshot of an active window, the Snipping tool lets you easily grab a portion of the a window, web page, your desktop etc.
Basically, using it you can capture any part of your screen that you want to. This example is part of a page from Media Center:
If you’re running Vista, here’s how to start using it. Just click the Windows Vista button at the bottom left of your desktop and search for Snipping Tool. Typically, the only thing you might want to change is the default border ink color, which is red (click Options, then look for Ink Color and choose the default color you want from the drop down). I use white since I’m usually posting these images to Direct2Dell.
Using the tool itself is pretty simple too. When you first launch, it pulls up a little dialog box on your screen. From there just move your mouse to the top left corner of what you want to capture, hold your main mouse button down, then drag your cursor to expand the capture window. Release the button, and it will pop that screenshot into the Snipping Tool where you can save it as a variety of graphic formats. If you mess up on the capture, just click New and start over. After a couple of tries, you’ll be grabbing screens like a pro.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am
thanks man! i can use this in my job too
May 5th, 2008 at 9:05 am
This sounds like a tool I use called SnagIt. I’ll have to check out Snipping Tool to see how they compare. Thanks, Lionel.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Yes, a great tool. And, if you’re using a Tablet PC you can write notes on top of your screen grab. Snipping Tool was originally a third party app add-on to Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Great to see Microsoft embed this functionality in Vista. I use it all the time to insert great screen grabs for PPT.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
A similar, free program for this is called Jing. It works the same way.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:17 am
I’ve used this for a while now, great tool.