How To Use Print Screen

Have you ever pressed the "PrtScn" or "Print Screen" key on your Windows keyboard and wondered what it does, since it never seems to do anything? Not so long ago, it used to send whatever was on the screen to the printer. The "Print Screen" button actually sends the printable image to the "clipboard" to paste into any graphics program. Not only is this extremely useful, but there are three variations of "Print Screen"

1. Pushing the "Print Screen" button alone will take a snapshot of all the active programs on your screen(s). This means if you have 2 monitors it will copy both screens to the clipboard. This is important because if you paste this into an email, more than likely the recipient will not be able to read it. It will look like the image below.

From TBG Two Minute Training

2. Using "CTRL+Print Screen" will copy entire contents of the active screen to the clipboard, or in other words, the last screen you clicked on (assuming you have two screens). An example of this is shown below.

From TBG Two Minute Training

3. Use "ALT+Print Screen" to copy the active dialog box to the clipboard. You can make a dialog box active by clicking on the box (or window) you would like to make active.

From TBG Two Minute Training