Windows Snipping Tool

 

Here is one of the most overlooked but useful utilities in Microsoft Windows. The Snipping Tool was introduced  in Windows Vista way back in 2006.

If you need to make sense out of something you see on your PC screen to someone else that is not there to see it then the Snipping Tool is for you.
A picture is worth a thousand words!

If you have Open Shell installed on Windows 10/11 or running Windows 7, search for the Snipping Tool in the Start menu, right mouse click on the Snipping Tool icon and select "Pin to taskbar".

 

Search for and place the Snipping Tool on the Taskbar.
Select the Start menu and search for the Snipping tool


Search for the Snipping Tool in Windows 10/11 using the Taskbar search tool.

 

Pin the Snipping Tool to the Taskbar in Windows 10.
Select the Taskbar Search tool and search for the Snipping Tool


Now launch the Snipping tool from the Taskbar and select New.

 

Snipping Tool select a new capture.
       Select New to start capturing


The desktop screen will change to a white transparent overlay. Position the mouse cursor on a area of the desktop you would like to capture, left mouse click and hold and drag the mouse on a 45 degree angle (diagonal) movement. The area receding away from the moving mouse cursor will change back to a normal appearance. This is the area being captured. Release the mouse button to capture the selected area. The captured image will appear in the Snipping Tool editor.

 

 Highligting areas in the Snipping Tool editor.
A Snipping Tool capture of a document from my website

 

Select the "Highlighter" icon  located next to the "Eraser" icon . Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the highlighter over areas on the image you would like to highlight. You can save the captured image to disk or you can copy and paste the image into the body of a email message or word processor document.

 

To save the captured image select the "Save Snip" icon or to copy the image select the "Copy" icon located next to the "Save Snip" icon. You can now open another program such as Word, Outlook or Thunderbird and paste the image to the document or email message.

 

With this handy tool you can email someone exactly what you see on your screen. You can highlight areas of importance and make comments above or below the image just like its done here in this article.