How to take a screen shot?

If you laugh at the above title question, you are probably computer-savvy. Well, at least you should be passingly adequate in terms of computer knowledge. You can skip this post then. :P For the rest of you who need a leg up, follow me closely. :-) Basically, you can take screen shots with or without tools. If you are wondering why you should install a program (the tool) when you can go fuss free, the reason is that a tool is supposed to help. No, that is not a trick answer. The right screen capture program does help to make taking screen shots a breeze. Especially if you need to take them often, I would suggest you install one. For those who want to go fuss free, here's how: First, go to the screen where you want to snap a picture of. When you are there, press the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard. Yes, that button is not without use. Just press it once, then open up an image-editing program such as the Paint program that comes pre-installed with Windows. (If you are not using Windows, you are probably savvy enough to write your own screen capture software... so shoo! :P) After Paint is launched, press Ctrl-v. This is the paste command that will work with your earlier Print Screen which is similar to a copy (you know, copy... paste ^^). After pressing Ctrl-v, you should see the previous screen you have captured. Just save the file and you are done. To make things even sleeker, do an Alt-Print Screen instead of just Print Screen. Holding down the Alt key while pressing Print Screen will let you capture the *active* application specifically. This means that unnecessary items such as your taskbar or IM buddy list will not be captured as well. Go experiment. :D As for those who want to install a screen capture program, you can check out e.g. www.download.com to make your selection from the many choices. Allow me to list 5 FREE screen capture programs below. They are listed in no particular order. 1. Screen Print & Capture 32 2. MWSnap 3.74 3. Gadwin PrintScreen 4.2 4. Ace WINScreen 4.5 5. Print Screen Replacement 1.3 Personally, I am using Screen Print & Capture 32 and I like it quite a bit. To help you further, I will guide you through the installation of this program (though you probably don't need it! :P). This FREE 2.67 MB program is created by Provtech and you can read the official specs here. Currently, it is compatible with Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP. So run along and download it now. Once you are done, unzip it to somewhere you can easily find. Then, double-click on the setup.exe icon to start the installation. Click OK. Click that button. Change the directory if you want though I would suggest you just stick to the default. Press Continue. Viola, done! :D Now you can run the screen capture program using the ScreenPrint32 link. I think you would likely use the "Capture Active Window" and "Prompt User for Capture Area" settings most often. And see how you can choose from any of the 4 popular formats - GIF, PNG, BMP and JPG. There is quite a bit of customization available so you can play around and have fun. From now on, whenever you have the program launched, pressing Print Screen will immediately give you your screen shot at the location you have selected, and using the settings you have chosen. :-)