How to Take Quick Screenshots on All Your Screens

How to Take Quick Screenshots on All Your Screens

A friend asked for feedback on a website. Rather than typing up all the notes, I took screenshots with annotations. It saved a lot of time not having to write: “The tab in the upper left corner might be better off on the right corner.” With a screenshot, I circled the tab and drew an arrow of where it might go.

Save time by learning how to take screenshots on a variety of smartphones, tablets and computers.

A picture is worth a lot of words, so I often capture screens on mobile devices for a variety of work. While testing a mobile app on a Samsung Galaxy S6, I found little mistakes. I snapped the screen and circled the typos. Done.

Back in the days of Palm Pilots and older smartphones, we had to buy screen capture software to accomplish this. Now, many smartphones come with this feature. Since it’s common for people to have multiple devices, this shows you how to take screenshots on different and computers.

IPhone, iPad and Apple Watch

As soon as you see something you want to capture on the iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6, and most iPads, press the Home button followed by pressing Sleep/Wake (Power) button. (Sometimes when press both at the same time, nothing happens.) You should see a flash or hear the camera shutter sound. Captures appear in the Photos app.

Are you one of the lucky owners of the new Apple Watch? You can snap your watch’s face to share its cool features. Press the Digital Crown and the side button at the same time. You may have to press and hold the Digital Crown button followed by the side button. Play with it until you see a white flash. The image shows up in Photos on the iPhone connected to the Apple Watch.

Windows Phone

To do a screen grab on the Windows Phone 8.1, press the Power and Volume Up buttons at the same time. Pictures are saved in the Screenshots album of the Photos Hub. It works the same way for Windows Phone running Windows 10.

On Windows Phone 8, press and hold Start button and Power icon at the same time. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t come with screen capture. But don’t fret. You can download an app like Screen Capturer v3 or WP7 Screen Recorder and be on your way to sharing your screen.

Android

Go to the screen you want to capture on devices running Android 4.0 and 5.0, press the Power button for a split second followed by Volume Down. You’ll see the captured image for a moment before it disappears. Your saved pictures are in the Screenshots folder of the Gallery.

On devices running Android 2.3 and older, some brands like Samsung include a screenshot utility. However, most running older Android OSes don’t come with a tool. If yours doesn’t, try Screenshot. Although the app’s requirement says it’s compatible with 2.3 and up, one reviewer says it works with his Android 2.2. Check out the reviews to verify whether your device works with this app.

Google Play has other screenshot apps, but it’s not clear whether they work with older versions of Android or which versions. For example, one app says it works with 2.2 and newer. Its description says it’s for Android 4.0 and 5.0.

You can take screenshots on Android Wear devices running Android 5.0.1, but it’s not as simple as it is for the others. AndroidBeat explains how.

Mac

The steps on a Mac depend whether you want to capture the whole screen or a smaller area. For the entire screen, press Command (⌘)+Shift+3 at the same time. To select an area on the screen, press Command (⌘)+Shift+4. Use the mouse to select the area and release when you’re done.

The image will appear on the desktop. For more options, see take a screenshot on your Mac from Apple support.

Windows PC

Windows 8 has two options for capturing screenshots. One is to press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. The capture is stored in the Screenshots folder of Pictures.

The other is the Snipping Tool as the image shows. It can capture all or part of your screen. You can add notes and email the image from within the window. Both options are available in Windows 10.

Take a screenshot on your PC with the Windows Snipping Tool

To access the tool in Windows 8.1 from a Windows PC, point the mouse to the lower-right corner of the screen, click “Search” and enter “Snipping” until Snipping Tool appears and select it. (On a tablet, swipe in from the right edge of the screen and tap “Search.”)

Windows 7 also has Snipping Tool. To access it, select “Start” and enter “Snipping” until it appears and select it. When you open the tool, it lists options for the type of capture you want. Select and drag the cursor around the area you wish to capture. Done.

Those who need more features such as shapes, cropping, videos, effects, and image editing might check out TechSmith’s SnagIt. It’s compatible with Windows and Mac computers.

Screenshots make all the difference in explaining what’s happening on your screen. They come in handy in the AkrutoSync user guide as it shows you how to sync Outlook with phones.

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  • Ruth Betts July 14, 2015 at 6:32 am

    How handy to be able to screenshot my WindowsPhone. I didn’t know it was possible. Thanks for this useful article.