How to take a screenshot?

If you are taking a screenshot of the website, try to show the URL (website address) in the image if possible.

How to take a Screen Shot on a Windows device:

The easiest solution is snipping tool: read about snipping here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13776/windows-10-use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screenshots 

Alternatively, you can use the default Print Screen tool on windows

Click on the window you want to take a picture of. India Alt + Print Screen by holding down the Alt key and then press the Print Screen key. The Print Screen key is near the upper right corner of your keyboard. (Depending on your keyboard model, the exact key name on the keyboard may be slightly different.) This tool will save the image to the clipboard and you can paste this image in any photo viewing application (like your application used to open the image on the computer) and then save it.

How to take a screenshot on your Mac

Press Command (⌘) + Shift + 3. Photos are automatically saved to the home screen.

You can capture the entire screen, a window, or just a portion of the screen.

How to take a screenshot? Picture 2

1. To take a screenshot, press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 3. 
2. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to capture a portion of the screen

How to take a screenshot? Picture 3

1. Press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 4.
2. Drag the crosshair  to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.
   
   
3. To take the screenshot, release your mouse or trackpad button. 
4. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to take a screenshot? Picture 4

How to capture a window or menu

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1. Open the window or menu that you want to capture.
2. Press and hold these keys together: Shift, Command, 4, and Space bar. The pointer changes to a camera icon. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.
3. Click the window or menu to capture it. To exclude the window's shadow from the screenshot, press and hold the Option key while you click.
4. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to take a screenshot? Picture 6

Where to find screenshots

By default, screenshots save to your desktop with the name 'Screen Shot [date] at [time].png.'

In macOS Mojave or later, you can change the default location of saved screenshots from the Options menu in the Screenshot app. You can also drag the thumbnail to a folder or document.

How to Capture Android Device Screen:

If your device is running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) or higher, press the Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time, hold for 1 second and your phone will take a screenshot. Photos are automatically saved in your Gallery.

Updates and detailed instructions:
(find your device here)
https://support.google.com/android/?hl=en  

How to Screenshot iOS Devices (iPhone / iPad):

Press the Power button in the upper right corner of the device and press the Home button at the same time. The screen flashes and if you open the sound you will hear the camera sound. Photos are saved with other images in the Photos app on your device.  

Take a screenshot on your iPad

How to take a screenshot on an iPad with Face ID

1. Press the top button and the volume up button at the same time. 
2. Quickly release both buttons.
3. After you take a screenshot, a thumbnail temporarily appears in the lower-left corner of your screen. Tap the thumbnail to open it or swipe left to dismiss it. 

How to take a screenshot? Picture 7

How to take a screenshot on an iPad with Touch ID

1. Press the top button and the Home button at the same time. 
2. Quickly release both buttons.
3. After you take a screenshot, a thumbnail temporarily appears in the lower-left corner of your screen. Tap the thumbnail to open it or swipe left to dismiss it. 

How to take a screenshot? Picture 8

Where to find screenshots

Open Photos, then go to Albums > Screenshots. 

Take a screenshot on your iPhone

Quickly save what's on your iphone screen.

How to take a screenshot on iPhone models with Face ID

1. Press the Side Button and the Volume Up button at the same time. 
2. Quickly release both buttons.
3. After you take a screenshot, a thumbnail temporarily appears in the lower-left corner of your screen. Tap the thumbnail to open it or swipe left to dismiss it. 

How to take a screenshot? Picture 9

How to take a screenshot on iPhone models with Touch ID and Side button

1. Press the Side button and the Home button at the same time. 
2. Quickly release both buttons.
3. After you take a screenshot, a thumbnail temporarily appears in the lower-left corner of your screen. Tap the thumbnail to open it or swipe left to dismiss it. 

How to take a screenshot? Picture 10

How to take a screenshot on iPhone models with Touch ID and Top button

1. Press the Top button and the Home button at the same time. 
2. Quickly release both buttons.
3. After you take a screenshot, a thumbnail temporarily appears in the lower-left corner of your screen. Tap the thumbnail to open it or swipe left to dismiss it. 

How to take a screenshot? Picture 11

Where to find screenshots

Open Photos, then go to Albums > Screenshots. 

How to take a screenshot of Windows Phone:

On a Windows 8. 1 phone, just press  the Power button  and the  Volume Up button  at the same time to take a screenshot of your screen. Photos are automatically saved in the  Screenshots screen  in Photos section.

Take screenshots in Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile

In order to take screenshots in Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile, go to the screen or app that you want to capture in the screenshot. Then, press and hold the Power and Volume Up buttons at the same time.

How to take a screenshot? Picture 13

When the screenshot is taken, you see the text "Saving to Screenshots " on the top side of the screen.

How to take a screenshot? Picture 15

Where to find your screenshots?

Screenshots in Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile are saved as PNG image files. They are found on your smartphone's memory card or storage space (depending on how you have set up the operating system to store pictures).

There, go the Pictures folder and then to the Screenshots subfolder. You can open this location by using the Files app for Windows Phone 8.1 or File Explorer for Windows 10 Mobile.

How to take a screenshot? Picture 17

Alternatively, you can use the Photos app from your smartphone and go to the Screenshots folder.

Another way to access the screenshots on your smartphone is by connecting it to a Windows PC and then navigating with File Explorer. Open your smartphone's internal storage space or microSD card and then go to Pictures -> Screenshots.

How to take a Screen Shot on a Linux device:

Method 1: The default way to take screenshot in Linux

Do you want to capture the image of your entire screen? A specific region? A specific window? 

If you just want a simple screenshot without any annotations/fancy editing capabilities, the default keyboard shortcuts will do the trick. These are not specific to Ubuntu. Almost all Linux distributions and desktop environments support these keyboard shortcuts.

Let's take a look at the list of keyboard shortcuts you can utilize:

PrtSc – Save a screenshot of the entire screen to the 'Pictures' directory.
Shift + PrtSc – Save a screenshot of a specific region to Pictures.
Alt + PrtSc  – Save a screenshot of the current window to Pictures.
Ctrl + PrtSc – Copy the screenshot of the entire screen to the clipboard.
Shift + Ctrl + PrtSc – Copy the screenshot of a specific region to the clipboard.
Ctrl + Alt + PrtSc – Copy the screenshot of the current window to the clipboard.

As you can see, taking screenshots in Linux is absolutely simple with the default screenshot tool. However, if you want to immediately annotate (or other editing features) without importing the screenshot to another application, you can use a dedicated screenshot tool.

Method 2: Take and edit screenshots in Linux with Flameshot

Feature Overview

1. Annotate (highlight, point, add text, box in)
2. Blur part of an image
3. Crop part of an image
4. Upload to Imgur
5. Open screenshot with another app

Flameshot is a quite impressive screenshot tool which arrived on GitHub last year.

If you have been searching for a screenshot tool that helps you annotate, blur, mark, and upload to imgur while being actively maintained unlike some outdated screenshot tools, Flameshot should be the one to have installed.

Fret not, we will guide you how to install it and configure it as per your preferences.

To install it on Ubuntu, you just need to search for it on Ubuntu Software center and get it installed. In case you want to use the terminal, here's the command for it:

sudo apt install flameshot

If you face any trouble installing, you can follow their official installation instructions. After installation, you need to configure it. Well, you can always search for it and launch it, but if you want to trigger the Flameshot screenshot tool by using PrtSc key, you need to assign a custom keyboard shortcut.

Here's how you can do that:

1. Head to the system settings and navigate your way to the Keyboard settings.
2. You will find all the keyboard shortcuts listed there, ignore them and scroll down to the bottom. Now, you will find a + button.
3. Click the '+' button to add a custom shortcut. You need to enter the following in the fields you get:
   Name: Anything You Want
   Command: /usr/bin/flameshot gui
4. Finally, set the shortcut to PrtSc – which will warn you that the default screenshot functionality will be disabled – so proceed doing it.

For reference, your custom keyboard shortcut field should look like this after configuration:

Map keyboard shortcut with Flameshot 

Method 3: Take and edit screenshots in Linux with Shutter

Feature Overview:

1. Annotate (highlight, point, add text, box in)
2. Blur part of an image
3. Crop part of an image
4. Upload to image hosting sites

Shutter is a popular screenshot tool available for all major Linux distributions. Though it seems to be no more being actively developed, it is still an excellent choice for handling screenshots.

You might encounter certain bugs/errors. The most common problem with Shutter on any latest Linux distro releases is that the ability to edit the screenshots is disabled by default along with the missing applet indicator. But, fret not, we have a solution to that. You just need to follow our guide to fix the disabled edit option in Shutter and bring back the applet indicator.

After you're done fixing the problem, you can utilize it to edit the screenshots in a jiffy.

To install shutter, you can browse the software center and get it from there. Alternatively, you can use the following command in the terminal to install Shutter in Ubuntu-based distributions:

sudo apt install shutter

As we saw with Flameshot, you can either choose to use the app launcher to search for Shutter and manually launch the application, or you can follow the same set of instructions (with a different command) to set a custom shortcut to trigger Shutter when you press the PrtSc key.

If you are going to assign a custom keyboard shortcut, you just need to use the following in the command field:

shutter -f

Method 4: Use GIMP for taking screenshots in Linux

Feature Overview:

1. Advanced Image Editing Capabilities (Scaling, Adding filters, color correction, Add layers, Crop, and so on.)
2. Take a screenshot of the selected area

If you happen to use GIMP a lot and you probably want some advance edits on your screenshots, GIMP would be a good choice for that.

You should already have it installed, if not, you can always head to your software center to install it. If you have trouble installing, you can always refer to their official website for installation instructions.

To take a screenshot with GIMP, you need to first launch it, and then navigate your way through File->Create->Screenshot.

After you click on the screenshot option, you will be greeted with a couple of tweaks to control the screenshot. That's just it. Click 'Snap' to take the screenshot and the image will automatically appear within GIMP, ready for you to edit.

Method 5: Taking screenshot in Linux using command line tools

This section is strictly for terminal lovers. If you like using the terminal, you can utilize the GNOME screenshot tool or ImageMagick or Deepin Scrot– which comes baked in on most of the popular Linux distributions.

To take a screenshot instantly, enter the following command:

GNOME Screenshot (for GNOME desktop users)

gnome-screenshot

To take a screenshot with a delay, enter the following command (here, 5 – is the number of seconds you want to delay)

GNOME screenshot is one of the default tools that exists in all distributions with GNOME desktop.

gnome-screenshot -d -5

ImageMagick

ImageMagick should be already pre-installed on your system if you are using Ubuntu, Mint, or any other popular Linux distribution. In case, it isn't there, you can always install it by following the official installation instructions (from source). In either case, you can enter the following in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

After you have it installed, you can type in the following commands to take a screenshot:

To take the screenshot of your entire screen:

import -window root image.png

Here, 'image.png' is your desired name for the screenshot.

To take the screenshot of a specific area:

import image.png

Deepin Scrot

Deepin Scrot is a slightly advanced terminal-based screenshot tool. Similar to the others, you should already have it installed. If not, get it installed through the terminal by typing:

sudo apt-get install scrot

After having it installed, follow the instructions below to take a screenshot:

To take a screenshot of the entire screen:

scrot myimage.png

To take a screenshot of the selected aread:

scrot -s myimage.png

Wrapping Up

So, these are the best screenshot tools available for Linux. Yes, there are a few more tools available (like Spectacle for KDE-based distros), but if you end up comparing them, the above-mentioned tools will outshine them.

In case you find a better screenshot tool than the ones mentioned in our article, feel free to let us know about it in the comments below.

Also, do tell us about your favorite screenshot tool!

Micah Soto

Update 25 April 2020