Vistablogged

Every once in a while you need to take screen shots of your screen. More often than not these have to be a part of your screen. In Windows XP (unless you have a Tablet PC edition), the only way to do this natively was to do a Print Screen (or a Ctrl+Print Screen) to capture the screen (or a window); then edit it in paint or something similar to get hold of the desired part of the screen that you actually wanted to capture. Of course, you could always resort to third party software for this. I have used the excellent OneNote 2007 with its simple to use rectangular screen capture feature which can be triggered by pressing the Windows Key + S. I have also used the much more versatile WinSnap for my needs. We no longer need to do any of the above in Vista.

Vista ships with the Snipping Tool. You can find it under the Accessories Menu in the All Programs Menu. Alternatively, you can search for using the Start Menu Search box. Just type Snip.

The Snipping Tool allows you to take partial screen shots as well as freeform screen shots. After taking the screen shot it allows you to annotate it and save it to a desired image file format. Here’s an example of a freeform screen shot:

Now for the killer tip.

KILLER TIP: If you combine the ability of the Snipping Tool with another cool Windows Vista feature, you can really boost your productivity with this little tool.

Windows Vista has a feature in which maps the combination of Windows Key + a number to a shortcut on your Quick Launch Bar.

So, for example, if the first shortcut on my Quick Launch Bar is that of IE, then if I press the Windows Key + 1, then IE will be launched.

Now add a shortcut to the Snipping Tool to your Quick Launch bar. It doesn’t matter which position it is, as long as it is in the first 9. (I recommend the first position). Your Quick Launch bar should look something like this: Note the icon next to the Start Button. Now, every time you press the Windows Key + 1, you will be ready to take a snip of your screen.

We recommend you to play around with the options in the Snipping Tool. There are quite a lot of them.