We know WinPlanet readers are more shortcut-savvy than the general PC-using population, but how many Windows users, do you think, know that pressing the PrtScr key will store a snapshot of the current screen image in the Clipboard? Maybe 50 percent? And probably even fewer know that pressing Alt-PrtScn will copy just the current or active application window. And all too many, we'll wager, have never learned that they can get a copy of an image from a web page by right-clicking it and selecting "Save Picture As."
And even if you're a whiz at Windows' built-in screen capture, you've probably spent many hours cropping and tweaking its bare-bones screen grabs with your favorite image-editing program. Want to clip and save just a portion of what's on your screen — a freehand, rectangular, or rounded area; an image and the caption below it; or one of an application's pull-down menus? Or what if you want to save something bigger than your screen — ever wish you could grab an entire web page without repeatedly scrolling down, then trying to overlap or stitch together multiple screen captures? And wouldn't it be handy if your daughter could quickly and easily grab all the images off that Smithsonian web page for her school report?
Taking screen snapshots may be a somewhat specialized task for most users — albeit half of the workday for software documentation, web project, or training specialists ... or program reviewers like your faithful scribe. But if you need more than one or two simple screen grabs a week, you need TechSmith Corporation's SnagIt 7.1 — the definitive power tool for Windows screen capture and management, and now newly enhanced with toolbar add-ins for Office 2003 applications and Internet Explorer as well as assorted other refinements.
This $40 utility (a 9MB download) hides in the background until you press a customizable hotkey — the default is Ctrl-Shift-P — which pops up an array of options for capturing a window or other area of your display. You can also shrink SnagIt to an icon in the system tray, with all of its menu options available after a right-click.
