The Snipping Tool is a Microsoft utility program that helps you take screenshots. In the past, it was called “Snip & Sketch,” but it’s now part of the main Snipping Tool. This guide shows how to use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots in Windows.
How to Take a Screenshot With Windows Snipping Tool
Taking a screenshot using the Windows Snipping Tool is quite easy. To open the utility, type “snipping tool” in the search box, or find it in the taskbar or Start menu if you’ve pinned it.
Click New to capture an image screenshot in Snip mode, or use the adjacent Record icon to capture a video screenshot. You can choose No delay or a delay of 3, 5, or 10 seconds. A delay can be useful when capturing the Windows login screen or during gameplay.
There are four types of snips:
- Rectangle: when you set it as the default, the Rectangle is the easiest snip to use. Simply drag your mouse or touchpad to capture the rectangular sections from anywhere on your screen.
- Window: it’s very useful to grab screenshots of a complete window, such as a program dialog box.
- Full screen: your entire laptop/PC screen or browser screen is captured.
- Freeform: graphic artists and designers use it to grab an entire shape around an object.
Once you select your snip mode, you’re all set to take screenshots in Windows. Just drag as much of the screen area as you want.
As soon as the Snipping Tool window appears on the screen, the screenshot is saved internally. There are several options: copy the image, save it, or edit in paint (accessible through adjacent icons).
Additionally, clicking the three dots on the right provides access to other features, including Settings. Opening Settings, you’ll find some advanced options, including an option to launch the Snipping Tool using your keyboard’s print screen key prtscn. However, we wouldn’t recommend it, as recent Windows updates have been known to cause issues with the Snipping Tool.
Also read: learn how to capture a scrolling screenshot in Windows, whether it’s covering an entire web page or multipage document.
How to Edit Screenshots in Snipping Tool
With Snipping Tool, you can use a screen capture or video as is. However, for sharing purposes, it’s helpful to make slight edits. Additionally, consider using the built-in Paint application: it’s stable and allows you to cut, trim, resize, and save your screenshots for future reference.
Annotate a Snip
When you annotate a snip, you can draw around the screenshot to indicate important information, highlight key facts, or focus on a specific screen element. To access this feature, click on the Ballpoint pen or Highlighter option at the top or bottom of the Snipping Tool window. Choose the color and size of the tool. The annotations will be added once you save the screenshot.
Additionally, there’s a Shapes option that allows you to add emojis, lines, arrows, ovals, rectangles, and more to your screen grab. If you need to undo any of these annotations, click on the Eraser icon, which will remove the effects one by one.
Related: use Google to extract text from images on an Android phone.
Capture Text From Screenshots
Using the Snipping Tool feature Text Actions allows you to extract text from images and screenshots. This uses the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technique.
When the screenshot is visible within the Snipping Tool window, click the Text actions button. It will prompt you to either Copy all text (to be pasted somewhere else) or Quick redact any email addresses and phone numbers.
FYI: learn how to take a screenshot with your Apple Watch.
Enlarge, Rotate, and Crop
By default, all screenshots captured using Snipping Tool appear smaller than the original image to keep with the application’s window height and width. If you want to enlarge the image, click the three dots on the right, and select Zoom -> Zoom-in as many times as you want.
But if the screenshot is too large, click Zoom -> Zoom-out to reduce the image size on the screen.
To crop a certain portion of the screenshot, click the Crop button. This allows you to drag the sliders to any level. Click the Apply (Enter) button to finalize the cropped scale of the image.
Note: Rotating an image is not possible using Snipping Tool. However, once you save the screenshot, you can easily rotate it using the Photos app.
Share a Snip
You can easily share a screenshot with the Snipping Tool. Click the three dots followed by the Share button. There are many share options available, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Phone Link, WhatsApp, and Nearby Share.
Just like using Snipping Tool is to capture screenshots in Windows is easy, you can easily take a full-page screenshot in Windows. For those looking for alternatives to Snipping Tool, there are many feature-rich tools, such as ShareX, SnagIt, and PicPick.
Image credit: Unsplash. All screenshots by Sayak Boral.
Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox
