Snipping Tool

Better Screen Capture Than Print Screen

One of the new tools in Windows Vista is the Snipping Tool. It's a simple screen capture utility that is a great improvement over the basic Windows Print Screen. The basic Snipping Tool is a small window with three buttons or commands:

• New (with options for what part of the screen you want to capture)
• Cancel (after you start a capture)
• Options for how you want the Snipping Tool to behave.

The Snipping Tool window itself will be invisible in any screen captures you take with it. (Because of this feature, in order to capture shots of the Snipping Tool itself, I had to use a different screen capture utility.)

To access the Snipping Tool you'll need to activate the Tablet PC Optional Components. Yes, an odd place to put such a universally useful utility.

• Go into Control Panel
• Click on Programs
• Look under Programs & Features
• Select Turn Windows features on and off
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• Check the box by Tablet PC Optional Components

If you're using the Classic View of Control Panel:

• Go into Control Panel (Classic View)
• Click on Programs and Features
• Select Turn Windows features on and off (from the sidebar)
• Check the box by Tablet PC Optional Components