Taking a screenshot on a Chromebook (and other devices)

Here's a question that's popping up a lot: "How do I take a screen capture/screenshot (i.e., an image of my screen) on a Chromebook?"

It's often useful to snap a picture of what's on your device's screen.
On a Chrombook, this is done by pressing the Ctl key together with the "Switcher" key (so called, because it otherwise switches you from tab to tab in Chrome)

Here's how to do it on other devices:

• On Windows computers, the Snipping Tool (in Accessories) does this nicely.  
• On a Mac, you can use Command-Shift-4
• In iOS (e.g., iPhone) or Android, hold the power/sleep button and home button (or volume down if your Android doesn't have a home button) at the same time.

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Need more advanced features?

Screenshots and screencasting with the Snagit extension

When explaining something computer-related, it is often helpful to capture either a still image of the screen (called a screenshot) or a video of the screen as you do your thing-- often recording your voice narration, as well (called a screencast).

I've mentioned various tools for doing this in the past, but I started using a new one recently, and I'd recommend it for two reasons:

1. It's easy to use
2. It automatically stores your screenshots and screencasts in Google Drive for easy sharing.

I made a how-to video. Here's an index so you can skip ahead if desired:

0:00 What is screencasting?

0:55 Signing into Chrome

1:45 Starting up Snagit

2:18 Granting permissions for Snagit

3:00 Capturing screenshots (still images)

4:24 Capturing screencasts (video of the screen)

For those who prefer the short and sweet written steps:

1. Sign into Chrome
2. Click the SnagIt Extension (white S in a blue square)
3. Grant the necessary permissions
4. Click the extension again 
5. Use the sidebar menu to take screenshots and screencasts
6. These are automatically saved in Google Drive for sharing 

(full disclosure on the video above-- I didn't actually use the extension itself to make the video, because I demo it in the video.  You can't use a camera to take a picture of itself !).

Screen capture and screencasting on a Mac

After some recent posts about capturing images of your screen in Windows, I realized that you Mac users might want to do the same, so...

For the many students and teachers at CVU who use Mac computers, you can also take a picture of your screen (called screen capture) and/or record video of your screen (aka screencasting).

Here's how:

1. To take a snapshot of your screen, press Command-Shift-4.  Then drag a box around the part of the screen you want to capture.  Or use Command-Shift-3 to capture the entire screen.

2. Another method for capturing screen shots on the Mac is by using the utility called Grab, located in the Applications > Utilities folder.



3. To take video of your screen (useful to demonstrate something), you can use QuickTime. Open QuickTime player, then choose New Screen Recording from the File menu. You can now record your screen while you narrate, if desired. The result can be sent right to iMovie for editing, if needed.

Windows 7 Snipping Tool

If you haven't discovered the Snipping Tool in Windows 7, it's worth checking out.  The Snipping Tool allows you to capture any portion of your screen, so you can then insert the image into a document  (for you Mac users, you can accomplish the same thing using Command + Shift + 4).  I have used the tool here to give you the idea* (and to show you where to find it):

You can add annotations-- such as the red arrow above.
The image is automatically copied into your clipboard, so you can paste it where needed.  You can also save the image for future use.

Teachers and students can use this tool to incorporate screen captures into text documents and presentations.

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*note that capturing an open menu (as in my example) is a little trickier.  Here are the steps (from the Microsoft site):

1. Open Snipping Tool by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Snipping Tool.
2. Press ESC, and then open the menu that you want to capture.
3. Press CTRL+PRINT SCREEN.
4. Select the type of snip you want, and then capture the menu.