Screen Capture + Print for Windows

The Snipping Tool that comes with most versions of Windows 7 is a perfectly capable -- if basic -- screen capture tool. But there are plenty of copies of Windows out there that can use a third-party screen capture app, and more than a few of them are Windows 7; many users prefer a different screen capture tool, often one that does more than the Snipping Tool, though some are merely different. Screen Capture + Print is a simple tool with a fast and intuitive screen capture process. It can capture the entire screen, whole windows, or rectangular selections, and copies, saves, or prints them, as you like.

Screen Capture + Print is portable freeware, so we extracted and saved the program's executable to a suitable directory and launched it. The PDF-based Help file explains how easy it is to launch the program with Windows, if you want to use Screen Capture + Print as your everyday screen capture tool. When it's open, Screen Capture + Print lives in the system tray, so we also recommend changing the system tray settings to show both the icon and notifications, which makes the icon persistent; you only need to click it to activate the selection tool. Clicking the icon selects the entire screen and grays it out, replacing the cursor with crosshairs. We merely had to place the crosshairs on target to click and drag a rectangular selection. Screen Capture + Print displays the selected area's size in pixels, a helpful touch. Releasing the mouse button copies the selection and produces a small dialog for selecting Clipboard, File, Print, or Cancel. Clicking File saves captured data as a JPEG in the Pictures folder. Right-clicking the tray icon opens Screen Capture + Print's menu, which lists the three main commands with hot key combos and opens the Help file, but it doesn't have any options like changing the destination directory.

Screen Capture + Print is quick and intuitive to use: Click, drag, and save (or print). If you need more, then tools with plenty of extras are available. Most of the time, however, what the app already offers is all we need.

• Setting to start the program automatically on Windows startup.