Workshop: Print what's on your screen

Download a handy utility for grabbing and printing screenshots in Windows

Many newcomers to Windows are puzzled as to why the Print Screen key doesn’t do what it says.

Instead of printing the screen it merely copies it to memory, so when you want a paper printout you’re obliged to paste the copy from memory into another program and finally use the Print command to get the job done.

This roundabout technique can be avoided by using Gadwin Printscreen, a terrific free utility that modifies the action of the Print Screen key so that a single key press really does print the screen.

And it can do lots of other clever things, including saving screens automatically, and letting you crop screens before saving or printing them.

Here’s how to download and use Printscreen.