I’ve needed to capture a screenshot – a picture of what’s on screen – on several systems recently. Normally I hit the “Print Screen” key – sometimes marked “PrtScr” – to copy the screenshot to the clipboard for pasting into Photoshop etc.

Some of the systems I needed to take screengrabs on did not have a working 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.

Android 4.0+

It differs from manufacturer to manufacturer, but try the following:

• Press Power and Volume Down buttons at the same time, or
• Press Home and Volume Down buttons at the same time

If it works you might hear a shutter click and see the screen will flash. Check the notification area and your Photos section for your screenshot.

iOS 5, 6, 7 (iPhone and iPad)

• Press Power and Volume Down buttons at the same time

You should hear a shutter click and see the screen flash. Check the notification area and your Photos section for your screenshot.

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 on MacOS takes a screenshot and saves to the desktop as an image file, whereas Windows saves a copy to the clipboard for pasting into another program.

Lightscreen on Windows

Lightscreen is 3rd party Windows software that I found pretty cool.

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!