Is it possible to make something simple as making a screenshot easier? Yes, I have been using the free and open-source tool Greenshot for the past year. And I noticed missing the features when I got a new Windows image on my laptop. I would recommend installing this for anyone who regularly uses screenshots in their documentation. We mentioned this tool previously in one of our tools showroom sessions.
Are you still making screenshots using the windows PrintScreen button? The drawback of this feature is editing the image afterward in Windows Paint or another image editor. The PrintScreen button makes an image of your whole desktop. When you are using multiple screens you get an image with all the screens. The image you make with the regular PrintScreen is difficult to save on file. Especially when you are making a manual it is a lot of work using cut-and-paste between paint to get all your screenshots.
What makes Greenshot such a lovely tool
Easy use: you install Greenshot and it is installed as auto-start on your computer. The feature is activated using the PrintScreen button on your keyboard( on some keyboards marked as “Prt Scr”). The executable is only 1.7Mb in size and it is available for Windows (free)and Apple Mac(paid).
Select screenshot region
Greenshot allows you to capture a region of your screen. When pressing the Print Screen button Greenshot shows a select cross making it possible to select a specific region of your screen. After this Greenshot allows you to select the image destination.
Destination options
Greenshot allows a large selection of destinations of the selected region. The default option is your clipboard. Easy to use alternatives is the preferred output folder for saving your screenshots or a program like Outlook, Word, or PowerPoint. Another nice feature is to directly send your selected region to the printer. And if you want you can still use MS Paint to edit your images. However, I prefer the embedded Greenshot Image editor.
Image editor features.
The image editor offers different features that are handy to emphasize parts of the screenshot. It allows you to draw lines, circles, and boxes over your screenshot. Another handy feature is the highlighting of text on the image.
Blurring text
Another great option is blurring the text. Especially useful when you are sending a screenshot of something with a certain level of privacy. Using the blur feature you can make certain parts of the screenshot unreadable.
you might want to blur some of the fields in this bank statement. Image with blur
Image file naming
The default file naming is the timestamp of the screenshot amended with the name of the application or web page that you are using. This makes it very easy to find the screenshot when you save a lot in a separate folder.
Configuration
The settings of Greenshot offer a lot of possibilities to tweak features like the output folder, image quality, capture mouse speed, language, or image quality. I have never made any changes here, but if you want you can customize this to your preferences.
Conclusion
I have Greenshot always available on my computer. I find it especially useful when making manuals for software or reporting an issue in an application when testing. Especially when you need a lot of screenshots that only cover a region of your screen. The tool is free and low maintenance. A great tool for improving your productivity. And helps me avoid using MS Paint.
n.b. : screenshots made for this article were are made the traditional way since it is not possible to make a screenshot of the process of making a screenshot. This made me realize how useful Greenshot is.
