Windows 7 : Gadgets and Other Supplied Accessories - Using the Snipping Tool

No Tablet PC (or any PC for that matter) is complete without the Snipping Tool, which lets you use your mouse or stylus to snip any object on your screen. This program lets you capture portions of the screen (called snips), consisting of an open window, a rectangular area you choose, a freeform area, or the entire screen. You can then annotate snips using your mouse or a tablet stylus, and save them to disk or email them. Files can be saved as images (PNG, GIF, or JPEG image files) or as an HTML page.

To open the snipping tool, go to All Programs and choose Snipping Tool, or type snip into the Start Search field.

Using the Snipping Tool is easy and requires only a few clicks of the mouse. When you open the Snipping Tool, your entire screen will fade, a dialog box will appear (shown in Figure 1), and your mouse will turn into a pair of scissors. The dialog box offers a few options regarding snipping types that will become useful. Other, smaller options do exist as well in the Options drop-down list. These options refer to the cropping line color and other various tasks.

Figure 1. The Snipping Tool dialog box. The screen color level drops a bit when this dialog box appears. Select the area you want snip.

The different types of snips that you can do from the screen are as follows:

• Rectangular Snip— This is the most common snip. You take your stylus and make a rectangular box on the screen.

• Full-Screen Snip— A snip of the full screen is done quickly and with a tap of the pen or a click of the mouse.

• Window Snip— Snip any window that you have open on your screen. Simply select the window that you want, and it will automatically be snipped.

• Free-form Snip— Using the pen makes this snip a lot easier to use. This snip gives you any shape—for example, a circle—that you want to make into a snip.

Each snip will be shown in a red frame by default unless you change this setting in the options. This frame lets you see exactly which section you are snipping. The Snipping Tools dialog box will also disappear when selecting your snip. After you have decided how you want to snip the current screen, simply click and hold the mouse while dragging around the snipping areas. With the entire screen faded, the selected snip on the screen will be unfaded and outlined in red (by default), as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Selecting the area using the Snipping Tool.

After you select the area, the snipped area will automatically be sent to a separate window, the Snipping Tool editing window, shown in Figure 3. This window will allow you to draw on, erase, highlight, and save the snipped area.

Figure 3. In the Snipping Tools editing window, make the edits you like before saving.

When saving the snip, you are offered a variety of file extensions. You can save the snip as an HTML, PNG, GIF, or JPEG file.

Choose Tools, Options for some goodies. For example, if you choose Include URL Below Snips (HTML only), take a snip of an Internet Explorer page, and save the snip as a Single HTML or MHT file, the URL of the page will be displayed below the snip. This is an excellent way of sending bits of a web page to people without requiring that they view the web page in a browser. Simply paste the snip into an email message. This only works on HTML-formatted web pages, incidentally.

Once a snip is saved, you can reopen the snip with your browser (for HTML files) or your Paint program (for files with picture extensions). You also can copy snips directly from the Snipping Tool window and paste them anywhere as a picture type. This is a great feature if you have to copy a few words out of a document that is in a picture format or PDF. Snipping tools really benefit tablet users because a stylus pen makes snips more precise.