How to Create a Screenshot - a picture of what's on your screen

The Computer Gal on Facebook
Ask to receive tips and handouts to your email.

Screenshots are very handy when you are having a problem with your computer and want to show what you see to someone else. They are also very handy if you are trying to explain how something is done to someone who doesn't know what their screen should look like. This website uses a lot of screenshots to illustrate how to do the steps in computer tasks.

Look on your keyboard. You should see a key with Prnt Scrn or Print Screen. Hit that key. If you have a laptop, you might have to hold a another key (such as an fn key) with the Print Screen key.
It might not seem like anything happened, but a copy of your screen just went into your computer's clipboard. The clipboard is a special place in memory to hold things you copy. So, you can't see what's in the clipboard until you paste it into a program.
Open a graphics program, like PhotoShop or Paint, or open a Word Processor. Paste into that program and you should see your screenshot.
If you have a Macintosh computer, you can take a screen shot by pressing the Command, Shift, and 3 keys (all at the same time.) You'll hear the sound of a camera shutter! I wish PC's would give us some kind of feedback that tells us the screenshot happened.