Kim Avery Coaching

A Screen Shot Is Worth a Thousand Words

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Being able to take a screen shot is an empowering skill. Today I’m going to tell you how to take a screen shot, and give you a couple of ideas of what you can take screen shots of.

How to take a screen shot

If you are on a Mac or a PC, you have the ability to take a screen shot built in. Who knew?!

On a PC, at the top of your keyboard, on the right side, you should see a key labeled prt scr. If you press that, a snapshot of your screen – everything that you can see – is copied to your clipboard, and you should be able to paste it into an email or a document. If you press the alt key and the prt scr at the same time (you will often see that instruction written like this: alt + prt scr), you will take a shot of just the active window.

If you are on a Mac, press shift + function + command +4 all together, your cursor will turn into crosshairs. Then, click and drag the cursor across what you want to snip. When you release the mouse button, you will hear it take a picture, and that image will be saved to your desktop, ready to use.

Jing by Techsmith

There is also a free program that will take screen shots, and a lot more. It is called Jing, and it is produced by Techsmith.com. Jing will also allow you to produce short (5 minutes or less) videos of what you are doing on your screen (these are called screencasts). Techsmith also produces Snagit, which is a full-featured screen shot program, and Camtasia Studio, with which you can create dynamite video products.

What to take a screen shot of

As the title of this post says, a screen shot is worth a thousand words! I received an email from a client with one word and a screen shot. The word? “Help!”

The screen shot save her from trying to explain what was wrong, and helped me see immediately what the problem was. It was a quicker fix for both of us. So use screen shots to explain thing that are happening on your screen.

And if you are using Jing, you can easily show somebody exactly what is happening — you can even hook your microphone up and explain what is going on while you are recording the actions on-screen.

And then, screen shots are great for quick graphic “cheats.” As much as I love HTML and CSS (I know, I’m a sick puppy), and take great delight in making code do things the way I want it done, sometimes I just don’t have time to mess with that. That’s when I “cheat” with a screen shot.
Most current word processing and presentation programs will allow you to add some special effects to images, like frames and reflections and shadows and perspective. I used to think, “Wow! Wish I knew how to make my HTML do that!”

But now I just create it in that other program and take a screen shot of it. Presto-Clicko! I’ve got my stunningly brilliant image displayed with just the exact effect I want.

And don’t forget all the fun “Word Art” you can create and turn into an image with the click of a button!

It’s on my clipboard… now what?

If you are using the native screen shot application that came with your computer, your image is on the clipboard. You can paste it into a document. With most word processing documents, you can right click on an image and it gives you an option to “Save as picture.” That’s what you want to do, and you are good to go.

If you are using Jing, you will need to save it from that program.

This should open up a whole new world for you. Please let me know what you create!

2 Comments

  1. Pam Taylor

    Thanks for teaching me how to do screen shots, Susan. It has been an asset when you are helping me as my Virtual Assistant. I am not good at explaining what is happening on my screen…so when you taught me to screen shot, it was extremely helpful for both of us!

    • Susan Fleming

      Thanks Pam — I take a ton of screen shots. Don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t!!