How to capture what you see on your computer screen (for free)

I see there are still some people out there in internet land who do not know how to grab a screen-shot off their computer screen properly, and post that either in an email or up onto a website.

If you are a MS Windows user, it is really as simple as pressing the “Prnt Scrn” (Print Screen) button, and this will capture everything currently displayed on the screen. If you want to only capture just the active screen, just hold down the ‘Alt’ button just before and during your pressing of the ‘Prnt Scrn’ button. This will capture only the active screen.

The capture goes to your clipboard, so all you need to do is paste it into a picture editing program, such as paint, and then save it.

As an alternative, for example for Mac users, you can use TechSmith’s Jing program. This simply involves downloading Jing, and then using Jing to grab the screenshot. Jing allows you to save the picture locally or upload it to the web.

By all means, the last resort would be grabbing your digital camera or webcam…. and pointing it at your computer screen!