Apps Take and Annotate Screenshots with Snipping Tool app in Windows 11


SnippingTool_banner.png

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 and save, paste or share with other apps.

You can take a snapshot to copy words or images from all or part of your PC screen. Use Snipping Tool to make changes or notes, then save, and share.

References:

Screenshots taken by the Snipping Tool are temporarily cached in the %LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.ScreenSketch_8wekyb3d8bbwe\TempState folder for the current user.

Screenshots by the Snipping Tool are automatically saved to the C:\Users\<username>\Pictures\Screenshots folder for your account by default.



EXAMPLE: Snipping Tool app for Windows 11

Snipping_Tool_app.png



Here's How:

1 Perform one of the following actions below to launch screen snipping:

A) Open the Snipping Tool app, and go to step 2.​

A) Press the Win + Shift + S keys, and go to step 3.​

B) Press the Print Screen key if Use the Print screen button to open screen snipping is turned on, and go to step 3.​

C) Click on the pen tail button if you have Screen Snipping selected for the click once pen shortcut, and go to step 3.​

D) Open the Start menu, click/tap on All apps, right click on Snipping Tool, click/tap on Take a new screenshot, New screenshot in 3 seconds, New screenshot in 5 seconds, or New screenshot in 10 seconds for what you want, and go to step 3. (see screenshots below)​

Start_menu-1.png
Start_menu-2.png

2 Select the Snip button if not already, and perform a step below depending if you want a delay or not: (see screenshot below)
  • Click/tap on the New button if you want to take a screenshot without a delay.
  • If you want a delay before taking a screenshot, click/tap on the Delay snip button, select a delay time you want, and click/tap on the New button.
Snipping_Tool_delay.png

3 Perform one of the available options: (see screenshot below)
  • Click/tap on the Snip (camera) icon, click/tap on the Snipping mode icon, and select Rectangular, Window, Full screen, or Freeform.
  • Select Rectangular mode, Freeform mode, Window mode, or Fullscreen mode for the type of screenshot you want to take.
New_Snipping_Tool.png

4 Select the screenshot area you want depending on the type of screenshot you selected in step 3. (see screenshot below)
  • Rectangular mode = Drag the cursor around an object to form a rectangle.
  • Free-form mode = Draw a free-form shape around an object.
  • Windows mode = Click/tap on the window to capture.
  • Full-screen mode = Capture the entire screen.
Snip_Sketch_save-2.jpg

5 Perform one of the following action depending on how you opened Snipping Tool:
  • If you used a keyboard shortcut in step 1, then click/tap on the Snipping Tool notification to open and annotate the screenshot. (see screenshot below)
  • If not, then click/tap on the Snipping Tool icon on the taskbar to open and annotate the screenshot.

If you have notifications turned off or Focus Assist on, you will not receive a notification pop-up after taking a screenshot. Your screenshot will still be copied to your clipboard, however. This will be fixed in a future update.


Once you snip an area of your screen — the snipped image is added to your clipboard and you can paste it immediately in another app. A screen prompt will also allow you to annotate, save or share it using the Snip & Sketch app.

A copy of the screenshot is automatically saved to your accounts C:\Users\<username>\Pictures\Screenshots folder.


Snipping_Tool_notification.jpg

6 You can now annotate the screenshot if wanted. (see screenshot below)

Snipping Tool provides a few tools for annotating images, namely Ballpoint pen, Highlighter, Eraser, and Shapes. Once you click a tool to select it, you can click it again to change its color or thickness.  

The tools work better with a pen device, but they can also be used with mouse or touch if you select the Touch Writing button icon.

Additional tools

- Use Touch Writing to draw freehand with a mouse, or with a pen or finger on a touch screen.
- Use the Eraser tool to remove specific strokes or click it twice to get the option to erase all ink. 
- Use the Ruler or Protractor tools and draw straight lines or arches.
- Press the Ruler or Protractor button again to hide the ruler/protractor. Reside or rotate the ruler/protractor by using two finger touch gestures (if the Touch Writing button is selected) or with the mouse wheel.
- Use the Image Crop tool to crop the annotated image. To undo cropping, select the Image Crop tool again and press Cancel (Esc) to restore the image to its full original area.
- Text Actions to copy and redact text on the image.
- Use Edit in Paint to open the screenshot in the Paint app to edit.

Shapes

To get started, select the new shapes button in the toolbar, and select the desired shape (you can change the fill or outline color if you’d like). Click and drag anywhere over your image to draw a new shape. You can resize, move, or change your shape color before clicking away. Once the shape is deselected, it will merge with your image, but you can still remove shapes with the eraser tool or undo your annotations.

Panning the view

Some of the images you annotate might be larger than the size of the Snipping Tool window. You can use the scroll bars to pan the view, but you can also pan the view with touch input (if the Touch Writing button is not selected) or by dragging with your mouse button while holding the Ctrl key down. 

Zoom

Zoom in and out of screenshots to make them easier to mark up using the magnifying glass icon. You can also zoom in and out of screenshots by pressing the Ctrl key down and tapping the + or - buttons.


Snipping_Tool-_annotate.jpg

7 When finished, click/tap on the Save (Ctrl+S) button, and: (see screenshots below)
  • Navigate to and select the location (ex: folder) where you want to save the screenshot.
  • Type a file name you want for the screenshot.
  • Select the file type (PNG, JPG, or GIF) you want to save the screenshot as.
  • Click/tap on Save.
Snipping_Tool-save-1.jpg
Snipping_Tool-save-2.png



That's it,
Shawn Brink


 
Last edited:
The one feature sadly missing still is to annotate with text entry, rectangles, circles. I end up selecting option to edit with good old Paint (who the hell uses Paint3D). It would be nice if thr basic Paint actions could be imported into Snip & Sketch.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro + Win11 Canary VM.
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Zenbook 14
    CPU
    I9 13th gen i9-13900H 2.60 GHZ
    Motherboard
    Yep, Laptop has one.
    Memory
    16 GB soldered
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel Iris XE
    Sound Card
    Realtek built in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    laptop OLED screen
    Screen Resolution
    2880x1800 touchscreen
    Hard Drives
    1 TB NVME SSD (only weakness is only one slot)
    PSU
    Internal + 65W thunderbolt USB4 charger
    Case
    Yep, got one
    Cooling
    Stella Artois (UK pint cans - 568 ml) - extra cost.
    Keyboard
    Built in UK keybd
    Mouse
    Bluetooth , wireless dongled, wired
    Internet Speed
    900 mbs (ethernet), wifi 6 typical 350-450 mb/s both up and down
    Browser
    Edge
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    TPM 2.0, 2xUSB4 thunderbolt, 1xUsb3 (usb a), 1xUsb-c, hdmi out, 3.5 mm audio out/in combo, ASUS backlit trackpad (inc. switchable number pad)

    Macrium Reflect Home V8
    Office 365 Family (6 users each 1TB onedrive space)
    Hyper-V (a vm runs almost as fast as my older laptop)

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self build
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING (11GB GDDR5X)
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G75 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3 wall mounted
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gbps Download and 35 Mbps Upload
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Defender and Malwarebytes Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Surface Laptop 7 Copilot+ PC
    CPU
    Snapdragon X Elite (12 core) 3.42 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB LPDDR5x-7467 MHz
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15" HDR
    Screen Resolution
    2496 x 1664
    Hard Drives
    1 TB SSD
    Internet Speed
    Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
    Browser
    Chrome and Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
This is pretty much useless...

000669.png


I would need, at least, to be able to do some basic annotating...

000667.png
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS ROG Strix
  • Operating System
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS VivoBook

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self build
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING (11GB GDDR5X)
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G75 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3 wall mounted
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gbps Download and 35 Mbps Upload
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Defender and Malwarebytes Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Surface Laptop 7 Copilot+ PC
    CPU
    Snapdragon X Elite (12 core) 3.42 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB LPDDR5x-7467 MHz
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15" HDR
    Screen Resolution
    2496 x 1664
    Hard Drives
    1 TB SSD
    Internet Speed
    Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
    Browser
    Chrome and Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Back
Top Bottom