Here is how to take screenshot in Windows 11 easily.
Basically, taking screenshots is an option available on any operating system and is not limited to Windows.
Most of the ways are common, but here I am trying to list out some ways that will be easy.
Taking screenshots comes in really handy in some cases, as you may need to point out something that you see on the screen to another person, or you can store an important piece of data as an image without copying it.
How to Take Screenshot In Windows 11
Taking screenshot using Print Screen button(Prtscn).
This button is available in all the keyboards that you can use to take screenshots or also can print your screen to a file. There are three options available with print screen button.
- Save the screenshot directly as a file
- Screenshot without saving it to a file
- Capturing a window
Now, let’s check the above-mentioned types of screenshot in detail.
Save the screenshot directly as a file
This is the most common way to take print out in Windows 11. If you have a windows compatible keyboard, then you may need to press the Windows logo key and the Print screen button together (Windows + print screen).
In case if you are using a windows tablet, then you may need to press Windows logo button and volume down (Windows logo + volume down) button together to get the screenshot.
The screenshot taken here will be of your entire screen, and it will be automatically stored into your computer’s pictures folder with a folder name called “Screenshots”
When you press the key combination of Windows logo+ print screen, the screen will dim representing you screenshot is taken and come back to normal.
This is one of the simplest way to take screenshot in Windows 11.
Screenshot without saving it to a file
This is another option that comes handy if you want to paste the taken screenshot to any picture or photo editor.
Here you just need to press “Print screen” button in your keyboard pointing to the window that you need to take screenshot at the front.
Here, what happens is that the complete screen is captured and stored in your system cache, and you can use it to past the screenshot to any place you need.
The dimension of the screenshot will be the resolution of the screen that you have set.
In case if you have a screen resolution of full HD then your screenshot resolution will be 1920 * 1080.
These goes based on the screen resolution, but this is one of the easiest method to capture screenshot.
After pressing print screen, you can paste the image into paint and edit it simply.
Now in these mentioned methods the issue is that your entire screen will get captured, but in case you don’t want to share your entire screen to anyone and only show the window that is open then you need to follow the next method.
Capturing a window
This feature comes really handy if you want to make a screenshot of a specific window that you need to share with someone else or upload.
For this, you need to use the Alt key. Pressing “Alt + print screen” will capture the screenshot of a specific window that is in focus.
In case you need a lower resolution image, you can make the window to be smaller and take the screenshot.
Now these options does not give enough flexibility that we actually want.
What in case you don’t want to take a screenshot of an entire window and just need to capture a specific section of the window.
Then the above-mentioned options won’t work. For doing that, you can try the following option.
Screenshot of a part of the screen.
This option comes really handy if you want to just point out a specific thing to someone.
You can capture the specific part of a window and share it, or add an arrow to it.
To do this, you can use a key combination of “Windows + Shift+ S”.
When this is done, the screen will get greyed out, and you will have a mouse pointer on the screen which you can take to a specific position and drag to select eh area.
This will capture the part of the screen and store it into the clipboard.
Now you can go to a photo or image editor like paint and paste it and edit. The problem here is you can only use it in Windows 11’s creator’s update.
In the creator’s update, this feature some integrated with Windows 11 itself.
Using the Snipping tool for Windows 11 screenshots.
There is a native tool inside Microsoft Windows 11 that you can use to take screenshots.
The snipping tool comes really handy if you want to take screenshots of a particular area or the entire screen. You can create snips that you can mark and share it to anyone.
There is a delay function available which can take screenshots of popup menu and other things like tooltips.
You can find the snipping tool from start menu or just searching snipping tool from the search box in the taskbar.
There is a delay option available in the snipping tool that could help in scheduling a screenshot with a delay. It comes really handy if you want to take a screenshot of a popover or a tooltip.
There are many option in type of snip that you can get using the snipping tool.
- Free form snip
- Rectangular snip
- Window and full screen
The delay timer really helps in capturing the exact popover or tooltip that you are looking to capture.
Using an external tool for screenshots
There are many screen capturing tools available to download on Windows 11.
Some are very easy to use and provide many editing options on the go.
Following are some tools that I tried and found to be good.
- Lightshot
- Greenshot
- Snapdraw
- Gadwin
Lightshot
This tool comes really handy if you are looking to take screenshot fast and easy way.
It has many options inbuilt that you can use to edit the take screenshot. It provides features to capture the specific part of the screen or to capture the entire screen.
You can use the editor options to annotate the captured image, as well as pointing out a specific place in the screenshot.
You are also provided with options to share the taken screenshots directly to social media as well as upload it to google drive.
This comes really handy in some cases. You can try out light shot by checking this page.
This application is available for download in Mac as well as windows.
After installing lightshot you can use this key combination to capture the screenshot, “CTRL+shift+9”.
Greenshot:
In case you are looking for how to take screenshot in Windows 11 then this is another best option available for download. Greenshot is similar to Lightshot as it has similar options to edit the screenshot that you have captured.
The main difference from this and lightshot is that you can do a scroll capture, where you can capture the entire page by scrolling.
You can save the captured screenshots in different formats like JPEG. PNG and GIF.
Main highlights:
- Capture a selected region on your screen.
- Easily annotate with inbuilt editing tools.
- Share the capture’s screenshot easily by sharing in Gmail and uploading in popular photo services like google photos etc.
Only issue I noticed is that this tool is not available for Mac and limited to Windows. You can download greenshot for Windows 11 visiting this link.
Snapdraw
This is another tool that provides an easy way to take screenshot in Windows 11. It has many handy features that could help.
You can add some effects to the screenshots that you have captured. It provides some add-ons like capturing a 3d image and adding some transparency to the captured screenshot as well.
This tool also provides the basic features that other tools provide, as well, as capturing a specific region and getting the entire screen.
Gadwin
This is another tool that you can use as an alternative for your traditional print screen button.
This tool provides more options like capturing a specific part of the screen and also editing and adding text to your captured screen.
You can find the Gadwin tool here.
How to take screenshot in Windows 11
So the above-mentioned are some of the best options that you could use to take screenshot in Windows 11. Here I have tried to add some basic tips as well as an info for people who are looking to know how to take screenshot in Windows 11. I noticed that Lightshot and greenshot were equally good in this process, and I would suggest using those.
If you like this post please share also please add comments with any new tool that has worked for you so that others also could know about it.
