How To Take a Screenshot On Windows

Posted on the 03 April 2023 by Jitendra Vaswani @JitendraBlogger

A screenshot is a picture captured by a user to record the visible items displayed on the mobile device, monitor or other output devices.

Many times we face a situation where we feel the need to capture the screen to explain critical things rather than explaining them verbally. Right?

And that is only possible if we can capture screen(i.e referred as a screenshot). That’s where we feel the need to take screenshots of the screen.

So, today I have come up with a post where I will show you how to screenshot on windows just by using the keys from the keyboard without any other third party software.

How To Take a Screenshot On Windows

Taking a screenshot on windows 7  is just a keystroke away, all you need to do is just press a few keys and you are done. I will be showing you how.

In the below guide ‘how to screenshot on windows 7’, I will cover the three methods two for Windows PC and one for the laptop for taking the screenshots. Firstly, we will start by taking the window 7 screenshots in PC.

Method 1:

How to Take a Screenshot on Windows PC

In this method, you can take the screenshot, of the entire screen. Let’s see how to do that:

  • First of all, open the window or the page you want to capture.
  • Press the “Prt Scr” from the keyboard. You may find this option between the function keys (F12) and Scroll lock key.

The print screen button may vary as per the systems like “PrtScn,” “PrntScrn,” ” Print Screen SysRq”, “Print Scr,” or something similar to that.

  • Once you click on the print screen button if you notice your cursor would blink for a second which means your screen has been captured and saved to the clipboard.
  • Now, you can paste that anywhere you want. It can be MS paint, MS word or anything. I am pasting it in MS paint. See the screenshot below.
  • To paste the image, press “Ctrl+V”, you can also paste it from the edit menu by selecting Paste.
  • Once you have pasted the image, press “Ctrl+S” or from the edit menu click on “save” to save the image. Choose the destination where you want to save your image and the file type you want to save it.

That’s all you have successfully taken the screenshot on windows 7. (The dimensions of the image will be the same as your desktop resolution, but still it’s versatile you can re-size and crop up the image accordingly).

“The recommended file type for the screenshot is PNG, but you can still save it as JPG, GiF, Tiff etc”. 

This was the first method to take a screenshot in Windows 7, but if you are a Windows 8 or Windows 10 user, then also, you can take the screenshot by using the same method.

Now moving to the second method:

Method 2:

How to Take a Screenshot on Windows Of The ‘Active’ Window

Taking a screenshot on windows is one of the easiest tasks possible, regardless of which version of the operating system you’re using. But a trivial change can make your task even easier. I will show you how.

If you follow the above guide you will definitely be able to capture the screen of the whole page or the current window.

But, the whole window might be of no use sometimes. Like capturing the windows that are opened and to avoid capturing taskbar icons follow the below steps.

  • To take the screenshot of the Active window press “Alt+Prtscr” from the keyboard.
  • Only “active” window will be captured and would be saved to the clipboard. You can paste that anytime, anywhere you want.
  • By using this method, you don’t need to crop the image since the only visible window will be captured, and you’ll end up saving some of your time.

For Windows 10 users: Pressing Windows logo key+PrtScn (Windows key with PrtScn) will save the screenshot directly in Screenshot folder. You can find the screenshot folder in your pictures directory.

Method 3:

How to take a screenshot on windows on a Laptop

If you are a laptop user then the PrtScn button can be hard to locate. plus pressing only PrtScn key doesn’t work in the laptops. You will have to use a combination of two keys.  

  • If you want to capture the image, you will have to press function key i.e. ‘fn'(located at the bottom left) along with PrtScn (Located at the top right corner)
  • Once you press both the keys, your screen will be captured and will be saved on the clipboard.
  • Paste it to the paint and save the image to the computer. That’s it.

This was all about how to screenshot on windows. If you want to take screenshot windows 7, the above guide may help you. In all the windows, the method of capturing a screenshot is almost the same.

If you have read the guide on how to capture a screenshot windows 7, you must have clearly got all the ways to take the screenshot on windows 7, laptop and Windows XP.

With the wrap-up of this guide, I’m expecting there are no more doubt remained regarding how to, take screenshot windows if any, do ask in the comment section.