In Windows, how can I capture the contents of a window or the screen?

In Windows Vista and newer, you can use the Snipping Tool application, which highlights sections of the screen and allows you to save the highlighted area as an image. From the Start menu, click All Programs, then Accessories, and then Snipping Tool.

In all versions of Windows, you can also capture the image of either the entire screen or only the currently active window using the PrtScrn or Print Screen key. Once you have the image captured, you can import that information into an image editor to save or manipulate it.

• To capture the contents of the currently active window, press Alt-PrtScrn (or Alt-Print Screen).
  
  
• To capture the contents of the entire screen, press PrtScrn (or Print Screen) by itself.

In both of these cases, the image is captured to the Windows Clipboard.

To manipulate the image you just captured, you can use the Paint program that comes with Windows. To load Paint, click the Start button, and select Programs or All Programs. Select Accessories, and then choose Paint. To move the captured image into Paint, go to the Edit menu and select Paste. At this point, you can print the image, alter it, or save it.

Similarly, you can paste this image into any other program that handles images (e.g., Word or Excel).

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