How can I save a screenshot directly to a file in Windows

Question

Is there a one button way to save a screenshot directly to a file in Windows   TheSoftwareJedi accurately answered above question for Windows 8 and 10   Below original extra material remains for posterity   This is a very important question as the 316K views shows as of 2021  Asked in 2008  SO closed this question around 2015 as being off-topic  probably because of the last question below    In Windows XP  one can press Alt-PrintScreen to copy an image of the active window  or Ctrl-PrintScreen to copy an image of the full desktop  This can then be pasted into applications that accept images  Photoshop  Microsoft Word  etc  I m wondering  Is there a way to save the screenshot directly to a file   Do I really have to open an image program  like Paint net or Photoshop  simply to paste an image  then save it

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Dropbox now provides the hook to do this automagically   If you get a free dropbox account and install the laptop app  when you press PrtScr Dropbox will give you the option of automatically storing all screenshots to your dropbox folder

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There is no way to save directly to a file without a 3rd party tool before Windows 8   Here are my personal favorite non-third party tool solutions   For Windows 8 and later     PrintScreen  saves the screenshot into a folder in  lt user gt  Pictures Screenshots  For Windows 7  In win 7 just use the snipping tool   Most easily accessed via pressing Start  then typing  sni   enter   or  then sni enter  Prior versions of Windows  I use the following keyboard combination to capture  then save using mspaint   After you do it a couple times  it only takes 2-3 seconds    Alt PrintScreen   Win R   run     type  mspaint  enter   Ctrl-V  paste    Ctrl-S  save    use file dialog   Alt-F4  close mspaint      In addition  Cropper is great  and open source    It does rectangle capture to file or clipboard  and is of course free

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You need a 3rd party screen grab utility for that functionality in XP   I dig Scott Hanselman s extensive blogging about cool tools and usually look there for such a utility -- sure enough  he s blogged about a couple here

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Is this possible    Press Alt PrintScreen Open a folder Right click -  paste screenshot   Example   Benchmark result window is open  take a screenshot  Open C  Benchmarks Right click -  Paste screenshot A file named screenshot00x jpg appears  with text screenshot00x selected  Type Overclock5  Thats it  No need to open anything  If you do not write anything  default name stays

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Snagit   lots of tech folks use that

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This will do it in Delphi   Note the use of the BitBlt function  which is a Windows API call  not something specific to Delphi   Edit  Added example usage  function TForm1 GetScreenShot OnlyActiveWindow  boolean    TBitmap  var   w h   integer    DC   HDC    hWin   Cardinal    r   TRect  begin     take a screenshot and return it as a TBitmap      if they specify  OnlyActiveWindow   then restrict the screenshot to the     currently focused window  same as alt-prtscrn      Otherwise  get a normal screenshot  same as prtscrn    Result    TBitmap Create    if OnlyActiveWindow then begin     hWin    GetForegroundWindow      dc    GetWindowDC hWin       GetWindowRect hWin r       w    r Right - r Left      h    r Bottom - r Top    end    if active window only   else begin     hWin    GetDesktopWindow      dc    GetDC hWin       w    GetDeviceCaps DC HORZRES       h    GetDeviceCaps DC VERTRES     end     else entire desktop    try     Result Width    w      Result Height    h      BitBlt Result Canvas Handle 0 0 Result Width Result Height DC 0 0 SRCCOPY     finally     ReleaseDC hWin  DC      end     try-finally end   procedure TForm1 btnSaveScreenshotClick Sender  TObject   var   bmp   TBitmap    savdlg   TSaveDialog  begin     take a screenshot  prompt for where to save it   savdlg    TSaveDialog Create Self     bmp    GetScreenshot False     try     if savdlg Execute then begin       bmp SaveToFile savdlg FileName       end    finally     FreeAndNil bmp       FreeAndNil savdlg     end     try-finally end

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Keep Picasa running in the background  and simply click  Print Screen  key  Source

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You can code something pretty simple that will hook the PrintScreen and save the capture in a file   Here is something to start to capture and save to a file  You will just need to hook the key  Print screen    using System  using System Drawing  using System IO  using System Drawing Imaging  using System Runtime InteropServices  public class CaptureScreen        static public void Main string   args                 try                       Bitmap capture   CaptureScreen GetDesktopImage                string file   Path Combine Environment CurrentDirectory   screen gif                ImageFormat format   ImageFormat Gif              capture Save file  format                     catch  Exception e                        Console WriteLine e                         public static Bitmap GetDesktopImage                 WIN32 API SIZE size           IntPtr  hDC   WIN32 API GetDC WIN32 API GetDesktopWindow              IntPtr hMemDC   WIN32 API CreateCompatibleDC hDC            size cx   WIN32 API GetSystemMetrics WIN32 API SM CXSCREEN           size cy   WIN32 API GetSystemMetrics WIN32 API SM CYSCREEN            m HBitmap   WIN32 API CreateCompatibleBitmap hDC  size cx  size cy            if  m HBitmap  IntPtr Zero                        IntPtr hOld    IntPtr  WIN32 API SelectObject hMemDC  m HBitmap               WIN32 API BitBlt hMemDC  0  0 size cx size cy  hDC  0  0  WIN32 API SRCCOPY               WIN32 API SelectObject hMemDC  hOld               WIN32 API DeleteDC hMemDC               WIN32 API ReleaseDC WIN32 API GetDesktopWindow    hDC               return System Drawing Image FromHbitmap m HBitmap                      return null             protected static IntPtr m HBitmap     public class WIN32 API       public struct SIZE               public int cx          public int cy            public  const int SRCCOPY   13369376      public  const int SM CXSCREEN 0      public  const int SM CYSCREEN 1        DllImport  gdi32 dll  EntryPoint  DeleteDC        public static extern IntPtr DeleteDC IntPtr hDc         DllImport  gdi32 dll  EntryPoint  DeleteObject        public static extern IntPtr DeleteObject IntPtr hDc         DllImport  gdi32 dll  EntryPoint  BitBlt        public static extern bool BitBlt IntPtr hdcDest int xDest int yDest int wDest int hDest IntPtr hdcSource int xSrc int ySrc int RasterOp         DllImport   gdi32 dll  EntryPoint  CreateCompatibleBitmap        public static extern IntPtr CreateCompatibleBitmap IntPtr hdc   int nWidth  int nHeight         DllImport   gdi32 dll  EntryPoint  CreateCompatibleDC        public static extern IntPtr CreateCompatibleDC IntPtr hdc         DllImport   gdi32 dll  EntryPoint  SelectObject        public static extern IntPtr SelectObject IntPtr hdc IntPtr bmp         DllImport  user32 dll   EntryPoint  GetDesktopWindow        public static extern IntPtr GetDesktopWindow          DllImport  user32 dll  EntryPoint  GetDC        public static extern IntPtr GetDC IntPtr ptr         DllImport  user32 dll  EntryPoint  GetSystemMetrics        public static extern int GetSystemMetrics int abc         DllImport  user32 dll  EntryPoint  GetWindowDC        public static extern IntPtr GetWindowDC Int32 ptr         DllImport  user32 dll  EntryPoint  ReleaseDC        public static extern IntPtr ReleaseDC IntPtr hWnd IntPtr hDc       Update Here is the code to hook the PrintScreen  and other key  from C    Hook code

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You may want something like this  http   addons mozilla org en-US firefox addon 5648  I think there is a version for IE and also with Explorer Integration  Pretty good software

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As far as I know in XP  yes you must use some other app to actually save it   Vista comes with the Snipping tool  that simplifies the process a bit

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Very old post I realize  but windows finally realized how inane the process was    In Windows 8 1  verified  not working in windows 7  tnx  bobobobo    windows key   prnt screen saves the screenshot into a folder in  lt user gt  Pictures Screenshots  Source - http   windows microsoft com en-in windows take-screen-capture-print-screen take-screen-capture-print-screen windows-8

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Might I suggest WinSnap http   www ntwind com software winsnap download-free-version html   It provides an autosave option and capture the alt printscreen and other key combinations to capture screen  windows  dialog  etc

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Without installing a screenshot autosave utility  yes you do  There are several utilities you can find however folr doing this   For example  http   www screenshot-utility com

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Little known fact  in most standard Windows  XP  dialogs  you can hit Ctrl C to have a textual copy of the content of the dialog  Example  open a file in Notepad  hit space  close the window  hit Ctrl C on the Confirm Exit dialog  cancel  paste in Notepad the text of the dialog  Unrelated to your direct question  but I though it would be nice to mention in this thread   Beside  indeed  you need a third party software to do the screenshot  but you don t need to fire the big Photoshop for that  Something free and lightweight like IrfanWiew or XnView can do the job  I use MWSnap to copy arbitrary parts of the screen  I wrote a little AutoHotkey script calling GDI  functions to do screenshots  Etc

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Thanks for all the source code and comments - thanks to that  I finally have an app that I wanted      I have compiled some of the examples  and both sources and executables can be found here    http   sdaaubckp svn sourceforge net viewvc sdaaubckp xp-take-screenshot   I use InterceptCaptureScreen exe - simply run it in a command prompt terminal  and then press Insert when you want to capture a screenshot  timestamped filenames  png  in the same directory where the executable is   keys will be captured even if the terminal is not in focus     I use Insert key  since it should have an easier time propagating through  say  VNC than PrintScreen - which on my laptop requires that also Fn key is pressed  and that does not propagate through VNC  Of course  its easy to change what is the actual key used in the source code    Hope this helps  Cheers

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Of course you could write a program that monitors the clipboard and displays an annoying SaveAs-dialog for every image in the clipboard  -   I guess you can even find out if the last key pressed was PrintScreen to limit the number of false positives   While I m thinking about it   you could also google for someone who already did exactly that     EDIT     or just wait for someone to post the source here - as just happend  -

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It turns out that Google Picasa  free  will do this for you now  If you have it open  when you hit  it will save the screen shot to a file and load it into Picasa  In my experience  it works great

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Might I suggest WinSnap http   www ntwind com software winsnap download-free-version html   It provides an autosave option and capture the alt printscreen and other key combinations to capture screen  windows  dialog  etc

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Try this  http   www screenshot-utility com   From their homepage   When you press a hotkey  it captures and saves a snapshot of your screen to a JPG  GIF or BMP file

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Short of installing a screen capture program  which I recommend  the best way to do this is by using the standard Print Screen method  then open Microsoft Office Picture Manager and simply paste the screenshot into the white area of the directory that you desire  It ll create a bitmap that you can edit or save-as a different format

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Thanks to TheSoftwareJedi for providing useful information about snapping tool in Windows 7  Shortcut to open Snipping tool   Go to Start  type sni And you will find the name in the list  Snipping Tool

[windows] How can I save a screenshot directly to a file in Windows?

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