Screenshots have become an indispensable part of today's world. Because this practical feature is used by millions of people every day. But what is a screenshot actually? We have the explanation here.
What's a screenshot?
"Screenshot" means "screen recording" in German. So when you take a screenshot, a picture is taken of what is currently displayed on the computer, smartphone or tablet screen. A common screenshot is taken by the operating system or software running on the device.
Screenshots can be useful in many situations:
- Share screenshots with friends on social media
- Presentation of software for a review
- For demonstration in a tutorial
- Display an error message or a software problem for technical support to troubleshoot
Here you can see, for example, a screenshot of our site in the browser and on the smartphone:
How do you take a screenshot?
You don't need any special software to take a picture of the screen, as the screenshot function is built into all current operating systems. Below are instructions for taking a screenshot on the most popular operating systems:
- Screenshot on Windows
- Screenshots on macOS
- Android: take screenshots with smartphones and tablets
- iPhone screenshot
- iPad: take a screenshot
- Take screenshots under Linux
- Ubuntu: take a screenshot
- Firefox: take a screenshot
Screen recording programs
Many graphics programs, such as Photoshop, also have built-in screen recording functions. Having your own screen capture software can offer several advantages:
- Automatic scrolling functions for capturing long documents such as web pages that do not fit on the entire screen
- Timer to add a delay before recording so you can prepare the work area beforehand
- Instantly edit the screenshots to add arrows, shapes, and text annotations
- Options to include or exclude the mouse pointer
