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Comment by aptimpropriety | Hacker News Reader

Windows 7 actually comes installed with a Microsoft-developed 'Snipping Tool', which allows the user to drag a semi-transparent box (or free form, or windows size, or full screen) over whatever part of the screen the user so desires. You can annotate, paste, or save the image wherever you like!

/end campus rep plug

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Sadly though it still pails in comparison with fastStone capture. It is impossible to take a screenshot of a menu such as file >> Save As with the windows 7 too because focus goes to the tool when you select it, where as in fastStone it does not...plus you can annotate, add drawings, and when you save it automatically timestamps the filename for you so you don't have to rename all your freaking files...

In the interest of fairness i take a HUGE number of screenshots (tech support) so the win 7 tool may be adequate for most, i still find it sub par ( also for a mac shift+ctrl+cmd+4 saves a snippet to your clipboard...better than the windows 7 equivalent IMHO shift+cmd+4 to save as a file to your desktop)

If you have OneNote Win+S instantly transitions to a rectangular-select screen capture mode without stealing focus.

From the help for the Vista version of the Snipping Tool:

Can I capture a snip of a menu, such as a shortcut menu or the Start menu?

Yes. Here's how to do it: Click to open Snipping Tool. On the Snipping Tool toolbar, click the Minimize button, and then open the menu that you want to capture. Press CTRL+PRINT SCREEN. Select the type of snip you want, and then capture the menu.

Thanks for telling me about this. It is modestly faster than my usual "take a screenshot and then crop in Paint.NET" workflow.

You may want to know that Alt + Print Screen copies the currently focused window to the clipboard.

The snipping tool is actually one of the major reasons I upgraded to windows7.

I used to use an old japanese program called screencut that while useful was an abomination man. Snipping tool is so much nicer.

Similarly OS X 10.4 Tiger and later bundle a utility called Grab which does selection, window, screen and timed captures.

Or you can use cmd+shift+4 instead of cmd+shift+3. This allows you to select a region on the screen or you can press spacebar, mouse over the window you want to copy and press enter.

I don't think there is a keyboard shortcut for a timed screen grab, however, which is what I use most often.

As far as I know you're right. Depending on what you're doing, Automator or the command line screencapture tool combined with a shell script or QuickSilver might be worth looking at to speed up your workflow.

You can also hit 'space' after cmd+shift+4 to get a little camera icon that takes a screenshot of only the window you click on. It works for any window, the desktop, the menu bar, any menu, and interestingly enough: all of the icons sitting on your desktop independent of anything else.

Grab has been around since NEXTSTEP. Was it really not in pre-10.4 OSX?

I'm pretty certain that it's been included, in pretty much the same form, since 10.0.

Snipping Tool is great - I use it every day for mockups. Find a web page, change it around with firebug, take a snip and send it along ...

AutoHotKey + snipping tool has served me well.

Link to script: http://thirderror.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/snipping-to... (if you're running Vista or 7 x64: Run, C:\Windows\Sysnative\SnippingTool.exe)

Gyazo (gyazo.com) is also very quick (automatically uploads the images for you).

Now, to map the PrtSc button to launch the snipping tool...

http://www.bcheck.net/apps/hoe.htm

KDE had that for at least 5 years (ksnapshot).

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