Taking Screenshots on Windows 10 and 11

Keyboard Shortcut

Press the Windows logo key and the "PrtScn" button to save a screenshot of your entire desktop to the Pictures>Screenshots folder of your account.

A screenshot of a Windows 10 operating system is shown

Snipping Tool

The Snipping Tool is a built in tool that allows you to take a screenshot of all or part of the screen.

Note

Note: The Snipping Tool is being phased out by Microsoft. It's replacement is covered in the next section called Snip & Sketch

From the search bar type "Snipping Tool" in the search field and then click on the "Snipping Tool" icon that appears in the search results.

Screenshot of the Snipping Tool in the Windows Start Bar

The Snipping Tool will allow you to take several different kind of screenshots which can be selected under the "Mode" tab

Free-Form Snip	Using your mouse you can draw any shape and capture a screenshot.
Rectangular Snip	Drag your mouse horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to cover the portion of the screen you want captured in a rectangle.
Window Snip	Hover over an application window and you will see a red border around the window, click to capture the window.
Full-Screen Snip	Click to capture the entire screen.

After you have taken your snip you will see it appear full size in the snipping tool editor. The editor will allow you to do a few basic annotations such as using a pen tool to mark the screenshot, highlighting an area with the highlighter, or erasing an annotation with the eraser tool. The toolbar also contains save, copy, and mail icons as well.

Snip & Sketch

The Snip & Sketch tool is the replacement for the Snipping Tool and is accessed via the keyboard shortcut "Windows Key + Shift + S." You will see the screen darken and four icons appear at the top of the desktop.

Screenshot of the Snip & Sketch on the Windows desktop.

The four symbols from left to right correspond to the same four symbols that are used in the snipping tool . From left to right the symbols will do the following:

Free-Form Snip	Using your mouse you can draw any shape and capture a screenshot.
Rectangular Snip	Drag your mouse horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to cover the portion of the screen you want captured in a rectangle.
Window Snip	Hover over an application window and you will see a red border around the window, click to capture the window.
Full-Screen Snip	Click to capture the entire screen.

After you have taken a screenshot using the Snip & Sketch tool a window will appear in the lower right corner of the screen to inform you that the snip has been copied to the clipboard meaning you can paste the screenshot directly into a document you are working on. You can also click on the window to open the Snip & Sketch editor. This editor will allow you to crop, rotate, annotate with pencil or pen, highlight, and save, copy, or share the file.