Tales from the Evil Empire

Bertrand Le Roy's blog

PrtSc now useless... or maybe not.

While looking for the character map in the accessory folder of Vista, I found a little gem that I just have to share. Vista now has a Snipping Tool that enables you to capture parts of the screen, highlight and draw on top of it and copy or save the results. Some would say it's about time and that there's about a million freewares that do this already, I'm just happy to have found it right there in Windows. It can even take non-rectangular snips:

Now I can remove one more useless key from my keyboard. That will undoubtedly become one of my favorite blogging tools (with Windows Live Writer). The only problem I found with it is that it can't capture itself (which of course is a feature...) or anything that disappears when it loses focus (which is a big problem if you're writing about where to find the snipping tool in the Start menu...). Wait, I just checked the FAQ and you can... But it uses the PrtSc key... Oh well.

Share and Enjoy!

Posted: Apr 24 2007, 10:52 AM by Bertrand Le Roy | with 13 comment(s)

Comments

Darren Kopp said:

For those of us who can't find it at all... you most likely have to go to control panel > programs and features then on the left side select "Turn Windows Features On or Off".

Then, when the list loads, click the checkbox that has "Tablet PC Optional Components" and that will install the snip tool.

If you still can't get it, then you don't have home, home premium, business, or ultimate version of vista.

# April 24, 2007 2:31 PM

Philip Colmer said:

I can't get the instructions to snip a menu to work. I press CTRL+PrtSc and the snip window opens but it isn't clear what to do next in order to get the menu to be captured - it has disappeared!

# April 25, 2007 8:34 AM

Emad Ibrahim said:

That's a nice feature and free.  If you want a more powerful screen capturing, use OneNote.  Check out http://emad.blogstogo.com/2007/04/25/blogging-and-screen-clippings/

# April 25, 2007 9:21 AM

dmurillo said:

You can also try this for really nice Aero Glass on your screenshots!

http://www.windowclippings.com/

Kenny has done a nice job

dm

# April 25, 2007 11:21 AM

Rick Strahl said:

That's better than Ctrl-PrtScn but it's no SnagIt <s>... Particularily what's really missing is the ability to select child windows inside of a larger window...

If you use SnagIt and Live Writer together I wrote a SnagIt screen capture plug in that make the process fully automatic (ie. no dumping to file and then manually importing the image into Writer). http://www.west-wind.com/tools/snagitlivewriterplugin.asp

# April 25, 2007 7:18 PM

Bertrand Le Roy said:

Sure, Rick, absolutely. I knew you were going to say that :)

Feel free to post a link to SnagIt and your Live Writer plug-in.

# April 25, 2007 7:23 PM

Tim said:

I can't get the menu capturing to work either.  I follow the directions but no option to see the captured menu in  the edit view. Any Help?

# April 27, 2007 1:50 PM

Bertrand Le Roy said:

mmh. Actually no, I can't get it to work either.

# April 27, 2007 1:56 PM

Granville Barnett June 2007 said:

Pingback from  Granville Barnett June 2007

# June 11, 2007 6:01 AM

Infinities Loop said:

I've seen this problem a few times now, from a few different developers... including myself. I figure
# June 13, 2007 5:26 AM

rabidrobot said:

The snipping tool is not installed by default with some Ultimate installations (maybe others?).  To enable it, go to Control Panel, select Uninstall Program then 'Turn Windows Features on or off'.  Once there enable the Tablet-PC Optional Components and click OK.

I actually had to do this twice, with a reboot in between, but it is working now.

# August 14, 2007 3:24 PM

IanC said:

I tried the onenote suggestion but I get a completely white screen. If I capture the area (in white) where I want, I get a nice bacl capture. (Using Vista Ultimate on a 3 screen system with dual NVIDIA cards). Wouldn't mind so much if the snipping tool doesn't tell me that it's "not working just now".

# September 6, 2007 9:01 AM

Morgan said:

If you get this error message when you try to use Snipping Tool:

THE SNIPPING TOOL IS NOT WORKING ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW. RESTART YOUR COMPUTER, AND THEN TRY AGAIN. IF THE PROBLEM PERSISTS, CONTACT YOUR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR.

Try running Office Diagnostics (Outlook -> Help -> Office Diagnostics).  It fixed the problem for me.

www.microsoft.com/.../default.aspx

# April 2, 2008 2:58 PM
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