Can we really annotate in Snipping Tools on Win11?

miloshapiro · Apr 11, 2023

In the Microsoft Play Store, the description of Snipping Tool says that you can annotate your clippings, but all I can see to try to do that with is the clunky pen tool, where handwritten letters look really unprofessional. Is there something I'm missing about adding text to what I clip? If not, that seems like a clear place for MS to add a great feature.

Brink · Apr 11, 2023

Hello Milo,

You can annotate screenshots like at step 5 below with the Snipping Tool, but it is very limited.

Take and Annotate Screenshots with Snipping Tool app in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to use the Snipping Tool app to take and annotate screenshots to save or share in Windows 11. The Snipping Tool app includes a built-in screen recorder and allows you to quickly take and annotate screenshots, photos and other images with your pen, touch, or mouse...

www.elevenforum.com

Another option is the Screenpresso app that has a free version. It is much better.

Screenpresso: The Ultimate Screen Capture Tool for Windows

Grab an image or video of what you see on your computer screen, annotate, and share with anyone.

www.screenpresso.com

cereberus · Apr 12, 2023

miloshapiro said:
In the Microsoft Play Store, the description of Snipping Tool says that you can annotate your clippings, but all I can see to try to do that with is the clunky pen tool, where handwritten letters look really unprofessional. Is there something I'm missing about adding text to what I clip? If not, that seems like a clear place for MS to add a great feature.

If you press the three dots, one of options is to edit the snip with good old fashioned paint which allows decent text annotation, squares, circles etc.

As usual apps by MS are designed for the average developers age (13 or less). Apparently, they wanted to rename pen in snipping tool to crayon.

ThrashZone · Apr 12, 2023

Hi,
Yeah paint is the easiest to deal with
Anything you snip can be pasted in paint and continued
I prefer the older versions of paint mostly menus/ icons but text is very simple to do in any version.
I have paint and snipping tool pinned to taskbar for easy access.

Disagree about the age thing
Basic for all ages is more accurate
Win-7 here the newer is pretty bland compared

miloshapiro · Apr 13, 2023

Not sure why, but I can't use the three dots idea. I don't see an option under three dots for Paint, but there IS an "open with" option. I clicked that, hoping to see Paint among the choices. but before any choices can come up, I get a pop-up that says:

SNIPPING TOOL
Something went wrong.

And the only option is "OK" to make it go away. So no access to Paint.

cereberus · Apr 13, 2023

miloshapiro said:
Not sure why, but I can't use the three dots idea. I don't see an option under three dots for Paint, but there IS an "open with" option. I clicked that, hoping to see Paint among the choices. but before any choices can come up, I get a pop-up that says:

SNIPPING TOOL
Something went wrong.

And the only option is "OK" to make it go away. So no access to Paint.

Yeah - there is a bug somewhere. I had this but managed to fix it but cannot remember how,

Try the powershell command

Get-AppxPackage MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core -AllUsers | Reset-AppxPackage

cereberus · Apr 13, 2023

ThrashZone said:
Disagree about the age thing
Basic for all ages is more accurate

My age comment was targeted at design of snipping tool annotation - any mature person designing it would know we need decent annotation. My real point is more about the pathetic trend to "dumb down" everything for the domestic users.

ThrashZone · Apr 13, 2023

cereberus said:
My age comment was targeted at design of snipping tool annotation - any mature person designing it would know we need decent annotation. My real point is more about the pathetic trend to "dumb down" everything for the domestic users.

Hi,
Yeah I got that part and is pretty much why I use the win-7 apps instead paint/ snipping tool/ notepad
I just hate the bland look of the menus personally

miloshapiro · Apr 13, 2023

cereberus, I'm not sure what you mean with the powershell command. I CAN get to paint just by bringing up the app; just not by clicking "open with" What would that command do?
and how might we trigger MS to look at that bug in Snipping Tool?

ThrashZone · Apr 14, 2023

Hi,
Open with you'd have to dig for it located at windows/ system32 folder
If it errors then I guess you can do the usual CMD as admin goodies

Code:

sfc /scannow

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

miloshapiro · Apr 14, 2023

Over this non-techie's head. I'll just do copy from the Snip, open paint from Start, and paste. It's not that much extra work than OpenWith, right?

And I'm assuming the resolution would be the same.

Can we really annotate in Snipping Tools on Win11?

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