6 different ways to save screenshots on your computer

Let's say you want to share with someone certain information that you have displayed on your computer screen, or you simply want to save it as an image for later. A quick screenshot is the ideal solution. Fortunately, Windows 11 has quite a few options that simplify everything for you.

See what Windows can do and which keyboard shortcuts are worth remembering. We have found 6 different ways, and in the text you will find an additional way to take a screenshot on the Microsoft Surface tablet in the easiest way.

"Snipping Tool" tile

The snipping tool that is part of Windows allows you to take a screenshot of the whole screen or part of the screen, save it, and you can also add notes to it, so you can highlight something and so on. The tool can also make a video recording of the selected part of the desktop, with sound.

You can easily call up the tool with a shortcut or key combination Windows+Shift+S.

When you press the key combination, the screen will dim slightly and a small tile will appear at the top with options to take a screenshot (camera icon) or video (camera icon). A little further to the right, you will be able to choose what shape or type of recording you want: Rectangle, Window, Full Screen, Handsfree.

When you highlight the camera icon and what you want to save on the screen, the shot is saved to the clipboard, and a window appears in the lower right for a few moments. Clicking on it with the mouse will open the clip in the Crop Tool application. There you can mark something, save it, etc.

To take a screen video, click on the camera icon and highlight the part of the screen you want to record and click "Start" on the tile at the top of the screen. You can also choose to record system audio or microphone audio, or both.

In the editorial office, we make screenshots and videos almost exclusively in this way. It might seem complicated when you first read it all, but in practice it's really easy.

Snipping Tool window

You can also take snapshots directly from the Crop Tool window. This is the window that opens when you click with the mouse on the window that appears at the bottom right in the previous step. Except that in that case the screenshot has already been taken, and here you are at the beginning. So this is a slightly longer version.

How to get the tool? You can find the "Snipping Tool" among the applications in the "Start" menu at the bottom left of the home screen or in the toolbar. Alternatively, you can simply type "Snipping Tool" into the Windows search engine and it will appear there. When you find the tool, click on it and a window will open, in which you must click on the "New" button in the upper left. This will open the tile as in the previous step - you can do the rest as you did before.

Dedicated key: Print Screen or PrtScn (PrtSc)

If you want to capture the entire screen, you can also do this by pressing the Print Screen or PrtScn key on your keyboard. Full screen capture it will be copied to the clipboard but will not be saved anywhere (in fact, it will feel like you did nothing). You'll need to open some editing tool like Microsoft Paint, paste the screenshot into it, and save the file there.

Alternatively, you can set the Print Screen key to open the "Snip Tool". Go to "Settings". You can find them in the "Start" menu. Then click on "Accessibility" and find the "Keyboard" option. There you can activate "Use the Print Screen key to open the screen capture tool".

Screenshot of active window: Alt + Screenshot Screen

To take a quick snapshot of just the active window, use a keyboard shortcut Alt + Print Screen. Video will be in the clipboard, but will not be automatically saved. If you want to save it, open some photo editor and paste it there and then save it.

A recording that is also saved: Windows key + Print Screen

To capture the entire screen and save the recording at the same time, click the button Windows + Print Screen. The screen will go dark for a short time and a snapshot will be created that will be saved in the Pictures folder or its Screenshots subfolder.

Looking for a Print Screen button, but it's not there?

It may happen that your computer does not have a Print Screen key, but don't worry, there is an easy solution for this, namely a key combination Fn + Windows + Space. This creates a full-screen recording that will be saved in a folder Images or its Screenshots subfolder.

Surface has its own "trick"

If you own a tablet or a real Microsoft Surface, you can use a combination of (semi)physical buttons to take a screenshot, as you may be used to on some phones. To do this, long-press the Windows logo at the bottom of the Surface screen while pressing the physical volume down button on the side of the computer. The screen goes dark for a short time and the image is saved in the Pictures folder as Screenshot.