Insert Screen Captures Directly into Your MS Office File

One of this blog's earlier posts was on the Snipping Tool found in Windows 7. Since then, one of the similar features in Office 2010 I've been using more is the ability to capture either the entire screen or a portion of it and have it automatically insert itself into your office document. This includes emails.

To do it, I've found it best if you have two monitors. Open your Office document on one monitor and the portion of the screen you want to capture on the other monitor. If this isn't possible because you only have one monitor, make sure that the window you want to capture is directly behind your Office document.

In your Office program, go to Insert on the ribbon, and choose screenshot. You will have the option of choosing one of the open windows, which will insert the entirety of the window. Alternatively, you can choose "screen clipping", which will allow you to highlight the area of the screen you want to insert.

Why would this ability be useful? A couple of things come to mind. Sometimes, you might be in a program that you want to be able to print what is on the screen, but there isn't a function for that built in to the program itself. You can use this method to get around that.

Second, when you are emailing your IT person about an error message you are receiving, you can make a copy of that message and insert it directly into your email quickly so that IT can see what you're seeing.