Computerly advice: screen shots

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ghostjmf · #1 Post by **ghostjmf** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:21 pm

Any quick advice on how to take a screen shot & get it into a word document?

The program generating the junk XXXXXXX fascinating material that needs the screen-shot taken is in a program we get to via internet explorer. I have to get the picture of the screen in some form I can import into a Word doc, & then, of course, I actually have to import it into the Word doc.

In previous administrations (at work, not in DC) I've just printed a copy of the screen & faxed it, but that isn't "good enough" anymore.

I will sign back on Monday for guffaws & any actual advice; thanks in advance for that last.

#2 Post by **tubadave** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:33 pm

The Prt Scr (Print Screen) key will take a snapshot of your screen. You can then open Word and paste (CTRL-V) the screenshot into a blank document.

If you want to take a picture of just the current active window (rather than the whole screen) then just hold down ALT when you hit the Prt Scr key.

Snaxx · #3 Post by **Snaxx** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:02 pm

tubadave wrote: If you want to take a picture of just the current active window (rather than the whole screen) then just hold down ALT when you hit the Prt Scr key.

Thanks, I forgot about that option. When I needed only part of a screen, I took an extra step and pasted into Paint or Photoshop and then cropped it. Then I "selected all" and copied-pasted the result into Word.

.

ghostjmf · #4 Post by **ghostjmf** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:45 pm

OK, I lied, I went to the square, bought tapes (probably the last tape buyer on earth I guess, but they're still making them for me!) had a fattening but delicious ice cream soda, known in New England as a float (ask for ice cream soda & they'll blenderize your darn soda in milk or something; what I would call a milkshake!) came back to get the start time for this week's Regenesis which I am taping (video tape, not what what I bought) for my sister (I've already seen years 1 & 2, which they're inexplicably rerunning most of again, even though they're past the suddenly in-vogue Ellen Page episodes) & of course any advice here.

I was gonna whine that that I don't have a print screen key (I assumed I had to be inside of or have activated or whatever some exotic program I don't have) but I see that I do. Oh. Either my last keyboard didn't have one or, worse, it did, but all you got was blanks. Which I think I do remember.

I will try to resist testing this because I have to pack if I'm going to listen to music in miserably hot weather this weekend. I'm becoming more & more an indoor concert only person as I age. One last miserable July weekend?

ghostjmf · #5 Post by **ghostjmf** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:52 pm

I lied again. I tried it. I saw nothing. Remember, being a literal person, I expected to (a) see something, & (b) hear my printer printing away. Then I thought "well, remember how much magic the network people have to do to connect various stuff directly to my printer". But I still thought "I should see something".

But just for the heck of it, I opened a Word document. Of course answering the every-time dire warnings of "this program won't work; it has disabled macros" with "begone" ("OK", actually). And I ctr-V'd merrily into my macro-disabled about-to-blow-up-or-whatever Word doc. And there was my screenshot.

Amazing.

Thanks, all.

ghostjmf · #6 Post by **ghostjmf** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 7:06 pm

For the days Back When They Respected/Accepted Faxes:

We have a very good search function in the program that is being ditched (largely for political reasons) here. We have a very lousy search function in the new program. I kept telling people who could "make it happen" what we needed on a search function page. Very clearly, technical-writer style, via e-mail. Lotsa spaces between the one-line thoughts, all designed for the "must be bullet-point!" crowd. I knew I should be sending them a darn screenshot but didn't think I was set up to do it. And print-screen, from within the program, gave me blank pages. I then literally stumbled upon using page-preview from within the program. I didn't change a darn thing, but having used the page-preview feature (in IE) before the print-screen feature inexplicably gave me a demo of what I wanted.

So now, many moons later, we are reportedly getting at least some of what I wanted. It will not be in the form I want it, I get hints. It will work a lot slower ("cuppa coffee" duration they say) than the instantaneous search in the to-be-politically-discarded program. But it will at least exist.

"A picture is worth a whole bunch of words".

(I had previously done "pretty much a screen-trace" on paper with pen, as well. Its gotta be a "professionally-drawn-looking picture", not just a picture.)

silvercamaro · #7 Post by **silvercamaro** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:41 pm

I love stories with happy endings -- or tolerable endings, if it doesn't work as fast as you'd like, but still works, at any rate.