How to Take a Screenshot (on any system)

I’ve needed to capture a screenshots on several systems recently that do not have the “Print Screen” button. Here are some handy ways to take a picture of the current screen or application if you don’t have access to them.

Windows On-Screen Keyboard:

Click Start, RUN,  type “OSK”, hit Enter. You now have a floating keyboard which has a Print Screen – sometimes labeled “PSC”, “Prt Scrn” or “Print Scrn”.  Tip: create a shortcut to the OnScreenKeyboard: right click on the desktop, click New Shortcut, type “OSK”, click next twice, and there you have it. Note: you will get a picture of the keyboard in your screenshots.

More about this from Microsoft.

Windows on an Apple Keyboard

I have this issue on my MacBook Air running Windows 7 and Bootcamp – there’s no printscreen button on Apple Keyboards.

• Function (fn) – Shift – F11 works as printscreen on my MacBook Air.
• If your Apple keyboard has an F14 button, that should work as PrintScreen in Windows, I’ve heard that F13 sometimes works.
• For more information on Apple keyboards in Windows, see this article from Apple.

ScreenHunter 5 Free is a “completely free screen capture software” for you to easily take screenshots – I haven’t needed to use it but might be worth a look.

MacOSX on an Apple Keyboard

Cmd-Shift-3 takes a screenshot and saves to the desktop as an image file (Windows saves a copy to the clipboard for pasting into another program).

Hope this helps – now it’s over to you! Is there a system you don’t know how to take a screenshot on that’s not listed here? Leave a comment and I’ll do my best to find an answer for you. If you have any other suggestions, please leave them as comments too !