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Screenshots
are pictures of the complete or partial computer screen, and taking
screenshots is often part of a translator's job description. For
instance, you might have to replace the source language graphics in a
software manual with those in the target language (assuming the
software is already translated and functional).
Windows
offers a number of "traditional ways" to take screenshots with the
following key combinations:
- PrintScreen
for the complete screen
- Alt+PrintScreen
for the active dialog
This
process saves the screenshot to your clipboard, and from there you can
paste it into a document or a graphics program to further modify it.
Pressing
WinKey+PrintScreen automatically saves the complete screen as a graphic
files under Pictures>
Screenshots. If your keyboard
doesn't have a PrintScreen key, open the On-Screen
Keyboard app by typing On-Screen
in the Windows
search field, click on the link that is displayed, and use the virtual
key from there.
Back
to screenshots: In the latest updates to Windows
10, you can also press
WinKey+Shift+S. This activates a screenshot app in the upper part of
your window:
Your
choices (from left to right) include a rectangular and a funky
free-style form, the active dialog or window, and the complete screen.
Choosing one places the screenshot on your clipboard and enables you to
open the screenshot in the newly available Snip
and Sketch app with basic
editing and annotating features.
In
case you've been looking for the old Snipping
Tool, it's still there and it
still works, but its days are numbered. You will eventually see this
message:
And
the truth is, it's a bit superfluous with all the new options.
Even
with this new wealth of features, though, there is still some
functionality that would be nice to have, like having the option to
include the active cursor in the screenshot, to take complex
screenshots of several overlapping dialogs, or to take screenshots that
go beyond the screen you're displaying. For these features you'll have
to have a tool like SnagIt
or Greenshot.
These programs are the Swiss Army knives of screenshots, especially SnagIt.
I often use SnagIt
to take screenshots while I listen to a presentation that includes
visual elements. The program saves them in chronological order for me
to easily refer to or review later on.
If
you're interested in copying text from your screen that might otherwise
be difficult or impossible to access (think of an image-based PDF or
graphics), you can accomplish this with screenshots by using the ABBYY
Screenshot Reader.
This tool actually uses internal optical character recognition
processing to convert "fake" text (there's a loaded word right now!)
into actual text that can be pasted into any other program. I love love
love this little tool. In Latin and Cyrillic alphabets the results are
amazingly accurate (I haven't tested other writing systems), and it can
save an extraordinary amount of time.
Speaking
of copying and pasting, here's a bonus rundown of those new Windows
features.
Microsoft
Office
has included a more advanced way of managing clipboard items for quite
some time now. You can activate this under Home>
(the little pointer next to) Clipboard.
This allows you to collect up to 24 different clipboard items from
anywhere on your computer and paste them individually or all at once
into any Office
document. The problem: if you don't work exclusively in Microsoft
Office programs, this isn't very
helpful and has very limited functionality.
In
response, this summer Microsoft introduced a Windows
Clipboard that can be used
across any program or app. It's activated for the first time by
pressing WinKey+V, and that's how to access it from then on out as
well. It will store 25 items at a time (up to 4 MB per item), whether
graphics, text, or HTML, and it's possible to sync the clipboard across
devices and pin items so they don't get deleted (everything else will
disappear once you restart your computer or reach the 25-item limit).
It
really is quite helpful -- no more temper tantrums in your office when
you once again overwrite your clipboard by copying something on top of
it!
Of
course, as with screenshots there are also more advanced solutions,
tools that allow you to print directly from your clipboard, store
clipboard entries between different computer sessions (i.e., after
switching the computer on and off), or "glue" as many entries as you
want into one item to paste everything together. For all of that ClipMate
does a fine job.
To
summarize: Windows
is doing an increasingly good job in handling "minor" things like
taking screenshots and copying and pasting, but if you are looking for
something that is better than just good, you might have to look
elsewhere.
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