How to Take Screenshot on Windows 10 [4 Easy Tips]

A screenshot is an image taken of whatever’s on your screen. Today we’re going to show you how to take a screenshot of Windows. There are various methods to do so, but we here at Alltipsfinder will tell you the best ways to do the task. You can take a screenshot on just about any platform, and Windows is no different. It has a built-in option that works great for basic tasks, but many third-party programs offer more ease of use and features. We already shared some Best Screen Recorder Software for Windows and also Best Screen Recorder Apps for Android. In this article, I’ll show you a few different methods “How to take screenshot on Windows 10.”There are 4 Methods to take a Screenshot in Windows 10. Let us have a look at all of them one by one.

Use the keyboard shortcut: PrtScn (Print Screen) or CTRL+ PrtScn

How to take screenshot on Windows 10

The first method is also the best known and it works in all versions of Windows: on your keyboard, press the PrtScn (Print Screen) key or CTRL+ PrtScn keys. The Print Screen button on your keyboard can take a screenshot and save it as a file, take a screenshot without saving it as a file, or take a screenshot of only one window (instead of the whole screen).

On most keyboards, the button is usually found between F12 and Scroll Lock. On laptop keyboards, you may have to press the “Function” or “Fn” key to access the Print Screen feature. When you push the key, it will look like nothing happened, but the screenshot has been saved to your clipboard.

Windows creates a screenshot of the whole screen and saves it to the clipboard. It is not stored as a file on your hard drive. Then, open an image editing program like Paint and paste the picture from the clipboard. Then, you can save it as a file and even do some basic editing.

To Save Your Screenshot as a File

The screen will dim for a moment, and you will see the screenshot appear as a file in a folder entitled “Screenshots,” inside your default “Pictures” folder. The screenshot is automatically labeled with a number.

You will only see your screen dim if you have the “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing” turned on in your visual effects settings (System > Advanced system settings > Click the Advanced tab > Click Settings under Performance section).

Taking Screenshot on Windows 10 using OneDrive

Microsoft’s cloud file storage service once opened, will ask you if you’d like to automatically save your screenshots to the cloud every time you hit the Print Screen key. From there, you can easily access the screenshots by copying a link.

Step 1

Launch OneDrive on your Windows 10 computer. You can find this free application, which comes with Windows 10, in the Start menu under All Apps, or by searching with Cortana. If you’ve already set up One Drive, the folder should open in Windows Explorer. If not, you’ll be prompted to log in with your Microsoft Account; only follow the on-screen instructions. Congratulations, now you have OneDrive running on your Windows 10 computer.

Step 2

Press the Print Screen key, as explained in the top section of this article, and you should see a prompt from OneDrive asking if you’d like to save your screenshots to OneDrive. Go ahead and confirm, and from now on, a PNG of your screenshot will be saved to OneDrive every time you press Print Screen. This also works for Alt + Print Screen, which takes a screenshot of the active window instead of the entire desktop. Your computer will make no sound or other indication when you take a screenshot, but the photos will automatically be saved to OneNote.

If no message pops up when you press Print Screen, you can enable this feature manually. Right-click the OneDrive icon in your system tray, which is located, just left of the clock in the taskbar. You may need to click the arrow icon to find this image. When you locate the cloud icon right-click on it and select Settings. Then, click the Autosave tab and make sure automatically save screenshots I capture to OneDrive is enabled.

Step 3

Launch OneDrive from the Start menu and open the Pictures folder. Inside, you’ll find the Screenshots folder, which will contain all of the screenshots you’ve previously taken. You can grab these files and move them to any folder you like, or edit them with your image editor of choice. You can also share them with friends by copying the appropriate link — simply right-click the file and select Share OneDrive link. A URL for sharing the screenshot with a friend will automatically be copied to your clipboard, which you can then paste into any email or chat message.

Take More Flexible Screenshots with Snipping Tool

The Snipping tool has been a part of the Windows for the extended time. This tool was first included in Windows Vista and never got any new features apart from few bug fixes. Snipping tool can take screenshots of an open window, rectangular area, a free-form area, or the entire screen. You can annotate your snips with different colored pens or a highlighter, save it as an image or MHTML file, or email it to a friend.

Snipping Tool in Windows Vista, 7, and 8 has one limitation: it can’t capture screenshots that involve mouse movements. To capture something that requires mouse movement, like pop-up menus and tooltips, you will have to use the Print Screen method.

In Windows 10, Snipping Tool has a new “Delay” option, which will allow you to capture screenshots pop-up menus and tooltips. Open the Snipping Tool app and click Delay. From the drop-down list, click on the number of seconds you’d like to wait until your screenshot is taken.

Unlike a regular snip, the screen will not immediately fade out. Instead, you will have between 1–5 seconds, depending on the delay you chose, to set up your screenshots. You can use this time to open that pop-up menu or tooltip you want to capture. Once your seconds have passed, the screen will freeze and fade out so you can create your snip. If you chose window or full-screen, it would just capture the snip immediately.

Take More Powerful Screenshots with PicPick

The simple all-in-one design tool PicPick is one of the best available. It’s free, available for Windows XP onward, and offers a more comprehensive feature-set than the options we outlined above.

Step 1

Download and install PicPick and then click the blue Download button on the left side of the PicPick homepage, and again on the resulting page, to obtain the free software. Install the application once it downloads. The simple setup wizard will walk you through the entire installation process, installing the files and creating a desktop shortcut.

Step 2

Click the Start menu, head to All Apps, and select PicPick. The icon depicts a painting palette similar to the Microsoft Paint image, sans the brush. Alternatively, search and open the program from the Windows search bar. If using Windows 8, press the Windows key to open the start screen. Afterward, click the down arrow in the bottom left, press Ctrl + Tab, or swipe downward from the center of the display to access the Apps View. From there, select PicPick.

Step 3

Once opened, choose the selection type from the list housed in the Screen Capture section in the bottom-left corner of the main program window. Like the Snipping tool, there are options for free-form, rectangular, window, and full-screen screenshots, as well as a fix-region and scrolling window options for greater control when capturing elongated images.

Step 4

Use your mouse or trackpad to define your screen-capture selection manually. Apparently, the full-screen snip and window-snip don’t provide a lot of leeway regarding versatility and selection choice, but the latter will still require you to choose the appropriate window before continuing.

Step 5

Save the screenshot and perform any edits you want, such as cropping and filter overlays, and click the main File option in the top-left corner. Afterward, select Save As, title the new file, choose a save location, and select your desired file format from the drop-down menu. For most purposes, JPG will do fine, but a variety of other formats are available to choose from such as PNG, GIF, or PDF.

Final Thoughts

Taking a screenshot is nothing new. The feature has been available on numerous platforms and devices for well over a decade. Users with a Windows 10 or Windows 8 machine have the added ability to take screenshots that automatically save to an individual folder. Pressing both the Windows and Print Screen key at the same time will capture the entire screen. Hope you like the methods “How to take the screenshot on Windows 10.”

There are many screenshot utilities, both free and premium, floating around on the Web. The bulk of them provide a healthy dose of customization and versatility that exceed Window’s innate screen-capture capabilities to way better. You can take short videos if you want, annotate screenshots, draw arrows and shapes, and pretty much anything you can imagine a screenshot tool should be able to do.

The above mentioned are the great tool that we recommend, especially if you need to take a lot of screenshots. Keep visiting for more amazing tricks and tips of the tech world and do not forget to share the content.