If you need to capture the screen content of your Windows PC 11 (or a part of it) for later reference, then it's time to take a screenshot. You can use built-in screen capture functions or third-party tools. Here are several different ways to do it.
Copy the entire screen to the clipboard: press Print screen
In Windows 11, as in previous versions of Windows, you can copy an image of your entire screen to the clipboard (a temporary storage area to copy and paste) pressing the Print Screen key (PrtScn). Sometimes, the print screen key will be labeled as “PrtScn” O “PrtScrn” on your keyboard.
On desktop keyboards, generally you will find the Print Screen key to the right of the F12 key, along the top row of keys. On laptop keyboards, you may need to press a function key (“Fn”) while pressing the Print Screen key to make it work.
With a screenshot on your clipboard, you can paste the screenshot in any application that can receive pasted images. As an example, you can open the Paint application that comes with Windows and paste the image with Ctrl + V. Then press Ctrl + S to save the screenshot as a file in the desired image format.
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Save a screenshot as a file: press windows + Print Screen
If you want to instantly save a screenshot as an image file on your PC, press windows + Print screen on your keyboard. Windows will take a full-screen screenshot and automatically save it as a PNG file called “Screenshot (#). Png” at C:Users[User Name]PicturesScreenshots file (where “#” is a number that counts in time based on the number of screenshots you took).
And remember that if you have a laptop, you may need to hold down the Function key or “Fn” while tapping Print Screen or “PrtSc” To make it work, so you may need to press Windows + Fn + Print screen to capture your screen as PNG file.
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Copy active window to clipboard: pressure Alt + Print Screen
If you want to grab the currently active window to the clipboard (without having to select or crop an image), pressure Alt + Print screen on your keyboard. Once on the clipboard, you can paste the screenshot in any application that receives images, like Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop or a free image editing application like Paint.NET.
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Capture a part of the screen to the clipboard: press windows + Shift + S
If you want to capture a specific part of the screen that you select yourself, you can use a special windows screen clipping tool 11. Anytime, press Shift + Windows + s on your keyboard. The screen will go dark and you will see a small toolbar at the top center of the screen. From left to right, this is what the alternatives do:
- Rectangular cutout: Select a rectangle-shaped freeform area of the screen to capture.
- Freeform clipping: Select an irregular shape as a screenshot. The area around the irregular shape (in the rectangular image) it will be black when i hit it.
- Window cutout: Choose an application window and capture only that window.
- Full screen cropping: Equivalent to pressing Print Screen by yourself, this option captures a screenshot of the entire screen.
To capture a rectangular selection from the screen, as an example, click the leftmost icon on the toolbar, which looks like a rectangle with a plus sign in the corner.
Next, hover near what you would like to capture. Click and hold the mouse button, then drag the mouse (or finger on a trackpad) until you have selected the rectangular area you want to save.
When I release the mouse button, the area you selected will be copied to the clipboard. If you have notifications turned on, you will see a small pop-up window in the corner of the Snipping Tool screen. If you click on it, the screenshot you just took will open in the Snipping Tool app where you can write it down, trim it or save it as necessary (see next section).
If you ignore the pop-up notification, You will need to paste the screenshot into an image editing program such as Microsoft Paint in order to save it to a file. Despite this, you can also paste the image directly into other applications, as email clients and messaging applications.
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Use Print Screen to open screen clippings
Windows 11 includes a useful option that will allow you to launch the screen clipping tool (that you see in the last section) pressing Print Screen instead of having to press Windows + Shift + S. To enable it, open Windows Settings by pressing Windows + i. Then navigate to Accessibility> Keyboard. Scroll down and place the switch next to “Use the Print Screen button to open screen clippings” a “Activated”.
Thereafter, close settings. Anytime you want to open the screen clipping tool to quickly copy screenshots to clipboard, just press Print Screen on your keyboard.
Take a screenshot on a device without a print screen key
On some older Windows devices that lack a Print Screen key (like the first Microsoft Surface tablets), you can take a screenshot by pressing Windows + Fn + Space bar.
Alternatively, if you have a tablet or other device with a Windows logo button, you can press windows button and volume down button at the same time to capture the whole screen. Either method will save a screenshot to the Images Screenshots folder in your user folder.
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Take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool
To take screenshots with more control you can annotate, save or share, you can use Windows Snipping Tool 11. To start it, open the start menu and type “clippings”, then click on the Snipping Tool icon when you see it.
When the Snipping Tool opens, click on “New” to start a new capture.
Once i do, you will see a small toolbar at the top of the screen (like the one seen in the “Capture a part of the screen"Above) that allows you to make a rectangular cutout, a freeform cutout, a window clipping and a full screen clipping. The difference here is that with the Snipping Tool app running, these tools don't just copy the screenshot to the clipboard. Instead, you can save them to a file.
After capturing the screenshot using one of the toolbar methods, will appear in the Snipping Tool window. You will have the possibility to trim it, write it down with a drawing pencil, save it as a file or share it with others using the toolbar at the top of the window.
At the same time, if you need to capture something with a timed delay, Snipping Tool es ideal. Click the clock icon on the toolbar and select a delay time from the drop-down menu that appears.
After choosing the time, Click the button “New” and a screenshot will be activated after the time period you selected. To save the file, click the save to floppy icon on the toolbar and choose a location. Nice and easy!
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Take a screenshot (o video) with the Xbox game bar
You can also take a screenshot or capture a video using the Xbox game bar. To do it, first, open the Xbox game bar by pressing Windows + g on your keyboard (or you can press the Xbox logo button on a connected Xbox controller). Once it appears, you can use the widget “Capture” to capture screenshots in PNG format and videos in MP4 format.
If you don't see the window “Capture” on the Xbox Game Bar screen, click the “Widgets” in the toolbar at the top of the screen and select “Capture”.
In the window “Capture” (displayed in the upper left corner of the screen by default), click the camera icon to take a screenshot of the current application (or desk, if there is no active application).
Similarly, to record a video of the currently active application, click the record button (which looks like a small white dot within the circle of the larger gray button. Note that, for some reason, Windows 11 will not allow you to take a video from File Explorer). or the desk, only one active app.
To stop recording, click the square button “Stop” in the floating toolbar of the Xbox Game Bar or within the Xbox Game Bar Capture widget.
After capture, screenshots and videos will appear on your C:Users[username]VideosCaptures file. You can also review them in the widget “Gallery” inside the Xbox Game Bar interface. When you have finished capturing, click on any blank area of the screen or press escape to close the Xbox game bar.
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Use a third-party screen capture utility
Even though the operating system (SO) Windows contains its own screen capture capabilities (as you have seen previously), you can get new features and flexibility by installing a third party screen capture program.
Among the dozens of free screen capture applications available for Windows, we suggest Greenshot as a good starting point. It's free and includes different capture and output options for several different screenshot keyboard shortcuts.
If you want something even more powerful and don't mind spending a few bucks on quality software, we suggest SnagIt by Techsmith. Many of us here at How-To Geek have used it for years. It's a feature-packed app that makes it easy to take great screenshots (it can also capture videos and animated GIFs).
SnagIt offers a Free Trial, so we suggest you give it a try and see if it meets your needs. If you take a lot of screenshots, could make your life so much easier.
