3 Free Tools To Take Screenshots in Windows

Screenshots of our screen can serve a number of purposes. Bloggers, particularly, can use screenshots as references while reviewing a product and illustrating its purpose and interface. Troubleshooting is also made much easier if a computer expert ca

n see the screen on which the problem is occurring and see for himself/herself what a certain error looks like. Some computer users set an application to timely take screenshots and then send it on an email address so the user can remotely check out the screen status of his/her computer.

Considering the role screenshots play in our blog posts and their importance to computer users overall, we decided it was about time we showed you our list of the best free tool to take screenshots in Windows operating systems. Read on and find out which screenshot taking application suits your needs best.

(*All the following applications are compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7.)

1. Greenshot

The first entry in our list is Greenshot which is a small 400KB freeware program. The application quickly downloads and installs. Greenshot stays out of your workspace image by taking its place as an icon in your System Tray. You can right click on its icon and the functions will be shown. Using the application’s predefined shortcuts, you can capture the image a specific region, the last region, a specific window, or the entire screen. We can access the preferences and set our images to open up in an editor or be automatically saved to a location in JPEG, BMP, GIF, or PNG image formats. Greenshot makes editing out specific regions of the whole screen a lot easier.

2. Bug Shooting

The next entry is Bug Shooting, a 1.5MB freeware program. It is a free screenshot utility that was developed for software testers who use bug tracking systems. Bug Shooting also has an icon in the System Tray; its options can be accessed and modified by rightclicking its System Tray icon. Three great features of this application are that it lets you set keyboard screenshot shortcuts that do not involve the PrintScreen keyboard button, it lets you include the mouse pointer in your screenshots, and it can be specified a server (even Skype or any email client such as Outlook) on which screenshots can be sent.

3. MWSnap

MWSnap, the last entry in our list, has a size of only 650KB. This application uses non-PrintScreen buttons as screenshot shortcuts. We can capture the entire desktop, a specified rectangular region, or an open window. Some of the extra features we get with MWSnap are the pixel measurer tool titled Ruler, a zoom in feature, and a color picker. MWSnap, like both the abovementioned applications, also has its very own image editor.