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Windows Vista Tip: Take screenshots with the Snipping Tool

Posted by Raj | Filed under Tips N Tricks

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http://img1.imagetitan.com/img1/1/43/snippingtool-2.png

Screenshot-happy tech writers and bug reporters rejoice! One of the nicer utilities built into Windows Vista is the Snipping Tool, a screengrab application that blows the doors off Windows XP’s measly Alt-PrintScreen and Mac OS X’s Grab.

The Snipping Tool can take full-screen, particular window, any rectangle or free-form “snips” of your screen and open it in an editor. There you can highlight parts of the screenshot and draw on it with a free form pen of different colors, thickness and tip styles. For a quick look at the Snipping Tool, see some screenshots of taking screenshots (recursion!) after the jump.

Snipping Tool’s default interface:

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Choose your snip type:

Taking a free-form snip:

http://img1.imagetitan.com/img1/1/43/snippingtool-3.png

The results of that snip in the editor:

http://img1.imagetitan.com/img1/1/43/snippingtool-4.png

More editing and the options dialog:

(Click The Thumbnail)

While the Snipping Tool is a huge improvement over XP’s built-in screenshot capabilities, for avid screengrabbers, it’s still lacking a few key options that our favorite, TechSmith’s SnagIt (a not-free app) does include, like timed captures and image resizing and cropping. But once you’ve got Vista installed, the price of all the new features the Snipping Tool offers is right - especially for the occasional screengrabber.