TUTORIAL "How to make a screen capture."

[ynneb]

Have you ever wanted to capture a screen of any software so as to help with a description of something?

This short tutorial should help.

Download and install this free program. www.irfanview.com (800k)
Once it is installed, open the box as seen in this picture.



Immediately after you select the screen capture option this box will appear.
Then select the screen capture options you would like to use. As shown below.
Note that one you push the start button irfanview will dissaper but is waiting for you to push the hotkey so as to take a snapshot of your screen or forground window.
you need to take note of the hotkey triggers. ( DONT FORGET THEM)



After capturing the picture, you can now save it.
If you are going to post the picture on the web, the following settings are more than adequate for making a good picture with a small file size.



Irfanview can also let you resize the image, crop the image and many other image functions.
Lets say you have done a screen capture of Mach2 but only want to draw attention to just one part.
You can crop it by dragging the mouse on the open pictuer in irfanview, and then press the Ctrl and Y key at the same time. You will now see the smaller picture. Save it as b4. If you didnt like the crop, press Ctrl Z and start again.

You will notice in the picture below I have dragged the mouse over the artsoft logo.
All I do it press Ctrl, y and I am ready to save the picture.



The result

[murphy625]

OUCH!!

Why would you want to mess with all that though???

Just open up your favorite photo editing program, hit the print screen button on your keyboard and paste it into a new file..

Or am I un-aware of something like your CNC program disabling the print key?

Murphy

[joecnc2006]

I Use ScreenPrint32, captures to printer or image files, you specify the area you want to capture.

http://www.provtech.co.uk/software/screenprint32.asp

Joe

[ynneb]

Why would you want to mess with all that though??? Just open up your favorite photo editing program, hit the print screen button on your keyboard and paste it into a new file..

Irfanview IS my favorite picture editor, especially since it is free, unlike many other picture editors. I dont see much difference between what I have shown and what you have said. Trust me, it takes 10 times longer to read the tutorial than actually do a screen capture. Anyhow, this is one method out of many, but the emphasis here is FREE

[Rekd]

Iview is my favorite also.

FYI, Iview has a fairly powerful set of command line options. For example you could create a shortcut on your desktop, or a VBS/VBA or other "User Tool" available in many programs, to launch Iview with a specific set of instructions to automate any captures that you do a lot of. There's a good deal of help in the help file.

[murphy625]

OOPS.
LOL...
I thought you were making it complicated or something... I remember a time back when a friend of mine was mucking with his computer asking me how to do exactly that.. He had downloaded some special photo screen capture utility.. I never did figure out why.. Anyhow.. When I showed him what the print screen button was for he asked me why then do they make these programs to capture a screen shot..
I didnt have an answer for him..

Murphy

[sendkeys]

for winxp users might just be easyer to use

ctrl+print screen

then paste it into paintshop, mspaint ect.

alt+print works too but just captures the ontop open program, not the full screen