Clearing The PRINTSCREEN Cache

3:28p.m., Tue 20 Nov 2007

Every so often the "Print Screen" button stops working - I used to have this problem all the time and thought it was a Photoshop bug. Happily(!?) it's a Windows XP bug, and there's an easy fix....

Run ClipBook Viewer (type clipbrd in the "run" box)
Click on Edit and select Delete.

That's it!

Windows Vista

The same behaviour has ben reported in Windows Vista, but the above fix won't work - clipbrd.exe, it seems, doesn't exist by default in Vista. Some PC/Vista combinations demand that you hold the Function button while depressing the Print Screen button.

"Print Screen" Button Basics

There's a key on standard Windows keyboards with the label "Print Screen" (sometimes shortened to "PrtScn"). This button actually pre-dates the Windows OS - in the DOS OS, pressing this button would send the current text screen to the printer. Windows 95 ascribed a different behaviour to the button. Pressing the print screen button takes a screengrab of contents of the screen. You can then paste this grab into an image-handling application, such as Adobe Photoshop or MS Paint.

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Print Screen captures the currently active window only rather than the entire screen.

For an excellent and comprehensive guide to taking a screenshot, visit take-a-screenshot.org.

Screengrabs On Mac OS

There's similar functionality on the Mac OS. Hit the following key combination: Cmd+Shift+3. This tkaes a grab of the current screen and places it on your desktop as a PNG format image. You can also hit Cmd+Shift+4 to grab a limited portion of the screen - oress and hold the mousebutton and you can draw a rectangle of the desired grab area. You could also use the "Grab" application that comes bundled in the Mac OS.

Visit take-a-screenshot.org for more comprehensive instructions.

Screengrab Applications

There's a slew of third-party applications out there that offer extended functionality & felxibility in taking screenshots. Here's three that I've used:

• IrfanView
• Wisdom-Soft Screenhunter
• Gadwin PrintScreen

Windows' Snipping Tool

Windows Vista and Windows 7 include a utility called Snipping Tool. It's a screen-capture tool, that allows for taking screenshots (called snips) of windows, rectangular areas, or a free-form area. Snips can then be annotated, saved as an image file or as an HTML page.