Simple Ways to Capture Screenshots on Windows 7/8/10/11 Laptops

Capturing screens on Windows 7, Win 10, laptops, and MacBooks can help you store various types of information, such as concert tickets, flight details, or important messages. To facilitate your work, the following methods for capturing computer screens on Dell, Asus, Macbook, HP, Acer, Lenovo Win 7, Win 10 have been compiled below to quickly record information as needed.

Ways to Capture Computer Screens on Win 7, 10

1. Methods to Capture Screenshots on Windows Laptops Without Software

1.1. Using the Print Screen Key

Method for capturing computer screens on Windows: Press the Print Screen (Prt Scr) button on your keyboard. The screen capture will be copied to the clipboard on your computer, laptop. You can open the clipboard to view the captured screen image by pressing the Windows + V key combination.

To edit or save the captured screen image, you can paste the image by pressing Ctrl + V into any photo editing software that allows you to insert images, such as Microsoft Word or Paint.

1.2. Using the Windows + Print Screen Key Combination

Method for capturing computer screens, Windows laptops, and automatically saving screen capture images to a folder, you can use the Windows + PrtScr key combination. Your screen will dim, and the entire screen capture image will be saved to the Screenshots folder.

You can find the Screenshots folder by pressing the Windows + E keys to open File Explorer and clicking on the Pictures > Screenshots folder. If you have OneDrive sync enabled, the screen capture images will also be saved there.

1.3. Using the Alt + Print Screen Key Combination

To capture the entire active window, press the Alt + PrtScr key combination. The PrtScr key is located next to the F12 key. The screen capture image will be copied to the computer's clipboard, and you'll need to paste it into another software like Paint to save your screen capture image.

Method for capturing computer screens only want to capture the interface of a particular software without capturing the entire screen: Left-click on the software and press the Alt + PrtScr key combination.

For example, if you want to capture the interface of the Unikey software, follow the instructions below: 

Step 1: Left-click on the Unikey software interface, then press the Alt + PrtScr key combination.

Step 2: Open the Paint utility integrated into the system.
- If not found, type Paint into the Search box on the Taskbar to search on the computer and click Open.
- Or use the shortcut key Windows + R => type mspaint into

Run => press OK or Enter

Step 3: Press the Ctrl + V (Paste) key combination to paste the captured image into Paint. Here you can use the built-in editing features: Insert text, resize, rotate image, fill color, ... integrated into Paint to edit your image.

- Finally, you just need to save the captured image by selecting File > Save as.

1.4. Using the Snip & Sketch Tool on Windows

Snip & Sketch is a tool built into Windows and is considered the best for capturing screenshots if you want to perform custom operations, annotate, or share your screen capture images.

To use Snip & Sketch, press the Windows + Shift + S key combination. This is the fastest way to capture computer screens, with just this action your screen will dim and a small menu will appear at the top, providing options such as capturing a rectangular portion of the screen, freeform capture, or capturing the entire screen.

After you capture a screen image, it will be saved to the clipboard, and a preview notification will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen. Click on the notification to open the Snip & Sketch app and edit the screen capture image using the available drawing tools.

1.5. Using Windows Game Bar

Game Bar is a background software integrated into Windows that you can use in most applications and games to capture screen images and record screen videos. To capture PC screen images with Game Bar, ways to capture computer screens can be done through the following steps:

Step 1: Press the Windows + G key combination.

Step 2: On the Game Bar menu, click on the camera icon at the top left of the screen to capture the screen.

Step 3: The screen captures of Game Bar are saved in PNG format and you can find them in the Video > Captures folder. You can also review the screen captures immediately by clicking on See my captures below the screen capture menu.

2. Methods to Capture Screenshots on Windows Laptops, Computers Using Software

In addition to the ways to capture computer screens integrated into Windows, you can also use software provided by third parties to capture screen images of your computer, laptop. These software programs will have more features for editing, storing, and sharing your screen images. Additionally, you can save screen captures in various formats such as JPG, PNG, SVG,... Below, Mytour will introduce how to use 2 popular computer screen capture software.

2.1. Capturing Computer Screens with Snipping Tool

In fact, the Snipping Tool is not external software but rather a utility available on various Windows versions. The method of capturing computer screens using the Snipping Tool involves the following steps:

Step 1: In the search box, type Snipping and press Open.

Step 2: In the Snipping Tool interface, click on Snipping mode to select one of the 4 basic screen capture functions:
- Free-form mode: Cut anywhere you draw (note that this cutting method is not very accurate, so if you're not skilled, avoid using it)
- Rectangular mode: Cut in rectangular areas you select.
- Window mode: Capture images of individual software, separate windows.
- Full-screen mode: Capture the entire screen.

Step 3: Next, you can edit the cropped image and save the file by selecting the Save as icon or using the shortcut Ctrl + S.

The Snipping Tool also supports many shortcuts to help you save time and simplify editing tasks. Summarizing Snipping Tool shortcuts will maximize your experience when capturing and editing screens on computers, laptops. Moreover, the Snipping Tool on the latest version of Windows, Windows 11, has a convenient screen capture and editing interface and integrates new features.

Read more: Snipping Tool on Win 11

2.2. Capturing Computer Screens with FastStone Capture

FastStone Capture is the most powerful screen capture software for you, this extremely compact software has many features, enough to satisfy even the most demanding users. To download the latest version of FastStone Capture software, with many new features, click on the link below

Step 1: After completing the download and installation process, when you open the FastStone Capture application, you will see a toolbar appear on the screen. You can click on the icons at the top to capture your computer screen.

Step 2: Then, edit with a variety of different options such as resizing, adding images, shapes, numbers, or logos according to your preference.

Step 3: Once satisfied, save the computer screen capture with the format you want by going to File, then select Save or Save as if you want to change the file name.

You can also customize the Hotkey in Settings to optimize the way you capture computer screens on Win 7, laptops, and PCs.

- Active Windows: Capture active software windows being used
- Windows/ Object: Capture the active window (user-selected)
- Rectangular Region: Capture based on a selected area.
- Freehand Region: Capture any area freely.
- Full Screen: Capture the entire screen.
- Scrolling Windows: Primarily used for entire web pages, capturing the entire webpage, including non-visible parts.
- Fixed Region: Capture based on predefined image dimensions.

3. How to capture MacBook computer screens

You can capture high-quality screenshots on any Mac computer, then edit or share them as you wish. The shortcuts for capturing MacBook screens all use the key combination Shift + Command + Number. Each key combination and number has a different screen capture function, and below are the detailed ways to capture Mac screens.

3.1. How to capture the entire MacBook screen

To capture the entire screen of your MacBook, press and hold the Shift + Command + 3 key combination. Then, you'll see a thumbnail preview in the bottom right corner of the screen. You can click on this preview to edit your screenshot.

3.2. Selecting a region on the screen to capture

To capture a specific part or window, you can press and hold the Shift + Command + 4 key combination. Your mouse cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click and drag this crosshair to select a region on your screen and release the mouse to capture the selected area, or press the Esc key to cancel and select again.

3.3. Using the screenshot Menu to capture a Mac screen

Step 1: Press the Shift + Command + 5 key combination to open a small menu at the bottom of your MacBook screen.

Step 2: The three icons on the left allow you to capture the entire screen, a specific window, or a marked area. Click on one of the options on the left to choose how you want to capture the screen.

Step 3: Click on the Capture button on the far right.

3.4. Capturing a screenshot of any window on MacBook

Step 1: Press the Shift + Command (⌘) + 4 key combination, and your mouse cursor will change to a crosshair icon.

3.5. Saving a screenshot on MacBook

By default, the screenshot will appear on your main screen and automatically be named Screenshot + the date and time you captured it. You can also change the location to save the image by capturing a screenshot on your computer as follows:

Step 1: Press Shift + Command + 5 to open the screenshot menu.

Step 2: Click on Options to open the menu and select the folder to save your screenshots.

Step 3: In the Save to section of the menu, choose one of the listed folders or click on Other Location to select the default folder where you want to save your screenshots.

Hopefully, these ways to capture screenshots on Windows 7, Windows 10 on Dell, HP, Asus laptops above will be helpful to you. If you need to capture specific areas of the screen, you can also use other software like Bandicam or Camtasia Studio. In particular, Bandicam also helps you record screen videos on Windows 11 as well as older Windows versions so that you can capture gaming videos on your computer. If you're using Bandicam, check out how to capture screenshots on your computer with Bandicam to understand the screenshot techniques and photo editing from this software.

See also: How to take screenshots on a phone