Print Screen doesn't work, I can't take a screenshot. Print Screen doesn’t work, I can’t take a screenshot Doesn’t save screenshots on Android, what should I do?

Author Elizaveta Gulyaeva asked a question in the section Software

Why can't I take a screenshot? and got the best answer

Answer from Mikulinsky Roman Aleksandrovich[active]
For this purpose, the keyboard has a special key - Print Screen (PrtScn), most often located in the upper right corner of the keyboard. When you press the Print Screen key (or the Print Screen + Alt combination), nothing happens. The fact is that the picture is temporarily placed on the clipboard, and in order to “get” it from there, you should use a graphics editor or paste the picture into the desired application. A simple (but sufficient for our actions) graphic editor is also built into Windows. It's called Paint, and you can launch it by following the link Start - Programs - Accessories - Paint. To paste a picture from the clipboard, you need to go to the “Edit” menu and select the “Paste” action. If desired, the screenshot can be processed in the editor (make captions, highlight something, etc.) and save it in a separate file (File - Save As...).

Answer from Andrey[guru]
SnagIt 10.0.1 Build 58 Rus RePack
Registered Russian version!
The main purpose of the program is to take screenshots from the monitor screen, and SnagIt can take not only static graphic “snapshots” of the selected area, but also, for example, record what is happening on the screen in a video, as well as capture a picture from applications using Direct X, DirectDraw and Direct 3D.
The built-in annotation editor allows you to add a description to the screenshot, emphasize something, paste it in the right place if necessary, for example, an arrow, etc. In addition, the program allows you to “pull out” text from where it is not moved using the Copy/ commands Insert. Additional features: support for working with scanners and digital cameras, as well as the ability to automatically send screenshots taken by the program to the website. And many other little things: managing hotkeys, the ability to use presets, pulling out icons and other graphics from EXE and DLL, taking a screenshot from a web page that requires scrolling to view, and much more.
SnagIt 10.0.1 Build 58 Rus RePack (19.78 MB):

Answer from Yebastian Rachowski[guru]
Screenshot from the game? Click on the print screen button, then open paint and control + V. Also, in many games it is possible to take a screenshot by pressing a certain button, the pictures are immediately saved to the game folder. Or install the fraps program

Answer from Tepmik[newbie]
I have stopped taking screenshots in the CS, when inserting only a black screen..

Answer from Misha Tebenev[newbie]
I used to be able to simply press Ctrl and PrtSc and the screen was automatically saved in the Screenshot folder, but now it doesn’t work (tell me what’s the problem??

Answer from Baykov Vladimir[newbie]
A similar problem as the friend above. I usually click PrintScreen, and then stupidly insert the image, for example, into the contact dialog box. But: for the last 2-3 days it either works or it doesn’t. It’s just that I can’t figure out where the dog is buried. It costs 8 professional x64 if anything

Answer from LimKA70[guru]
There are different programs for you to choose from! Timka's blog: How to take a screenshot of a computer screen
https://goo.gl/rTuj3L.

Answer from Eofia Shentsova[newbie]
Some keyboards have a special F Lock button that is responsible for the functions of the F keys, and sometimes the activity of this button interferes with the functioning of PrintScreen. In this case, you just need to disable F Lock.

Good afternoon

Folk wisdom: There is no computer user who would not at least once want (or need) to take a photo of the screen!

In general, a screenshot (or a photograph of it) is taken without the help of a camera - just a few actions in Windows are enough (about them later in the article). And the correct name for such a picture is ScreenShot (in Russian, “screenshot”).

You will need a screen (by the way, this is another name for ScreenShot, more abbreviated) can in a wide variety of situations: you want to explain something to a person (for example, how I show screenshots with arrows in my articles), show your achievements in games, you have errors and malfunctions in your PC or program, and you want to illustrate a specific problem to the master, etc.

In this article I would like to talk about several ways to take a screenshot of the screen. In general, this task is not so difficult, but in some cases it turns into a rather dreary undertaking: for example, when instead of a screenshot you get a black window, or you can’t take it at all. I'll look into all the cases :).

And so, let’s begin...

Important! If you want to take a screenshot of a game screen or some frame of a movie, then this issue is discussed in the article below (in the special subsection, see contents). In some cases, it is impossible to get a screenshot from them using the classic method!

The keyboard of any computer (laptop) has special button (on PrtScr laptops) to save everything that is displayed on it to the clipboard (sort of: the computer will take a screenshot and put it in memory, as if you copied something in some file).

It is located at the top next to the numeric keypad (see photo below).

After the screen image is saved to the buffer, you need to use the built-in Paint program (lightweight graphic editor for quick image editing, built into Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10) with which you can save and receive the screen. I'll look at it in more detail for each OS version.

1.1. Windows XP

1) First of all, you need to open the program on the screen or see the error that you want to screen.

3) Now the image from the buffer needs to be inserted into some graphics editor. Windows XP has Paint - that's what we'll use. To open it, use the following address: START/All Programs/Accessories/Paint(see photo below).

4) Next, simply press the following command: “Edit/paste“, or the key combination Ctrl+V. If you did everything correctly, then your screenshot should appear in Paint (if it didn’t appear and nothing happened at all, you may have pressed the PrintScreen button poorly - try taking the screen again).

By the way, in Paint you can edit a picture: trim the edges, reduce the size, paint on or outline the necessary details, add some text, etc. In general, there is no point in considering editing tools in this article; you can easily figure it out yourself experimentally :).

Paint: Edit/Paste

5) After the picture has been edited - just click " File/Save As..."(an example is shown in the screenshot below). Next, you will need to specify the format in which you want to save the picture and folder on disk. Actually, that's it, the screen is ready!

1.2. Windows 7 (2 methods)

Method number 1 - classic

1) On the “desired” image on the screen (which you want to show to others - that is, screenshot) - press the PrtScr button (or, the button next to the numeric keypad).

3) The next step is to click the “Insert” button (it is located on the top left, see the screenshot below). Also, instead of “Paste”, you can use the hotkey combination: Ctrl+V.

4) Last step: click " File/save as...“, then select the format (JPG, BMP, GIF or PNG) and save your screen. All!

Method No. 2 - Scissors tool

A rather convenient tool for creating screenshots appeared in Windows 7 - scissors! Allows you to capture the entire screen (or a separate area of it) in a variety of formats: JPG, PNG, BMP. Let me look at an example of work in scissors.

1) To open this program, go to: START/All Programs/Accessories/Scissors(often, after you open the START menu, scissors will be presented in the list of programs used, as in my screenshot below).

Scissors - Windows 7

2) Scissors have a mega-convenient feature: you can select an arbitrary area for the screen (i.e., use your mouse to circle the desired area, which will be screened). You can also select a rectangular area, screen a window, or screen the entire screen.

In general, you choose how you will select the area (see screenshot below).

Comfortable? Yes!

Fast? Yes!

1.3. Windows 8, 10

1) We also first select the moment on the computer screen that we want to screenshot.

3) Next you need to open the Paint graphic editor. The easiest and fastest way to do this in new versions of Windows 8, 8.1, 10 is to use the “Run” command (in my humble opinion, because searching among the tiles or the START menu for this shortcut takes much longer) .

To do this, press the button combination Win+R and then enter mspaint and press Enter. The Paint editor should open.

mspaint - Windows 10

By the way, in addition to Paint, you can open and run many applications through the “Run” command. I recommend reading the following article:

PNG format: should be chosen if you want to use the image on the Internet (this way the colors and contrast of the image are conveyed more clearly and richly);
JPEG format: the most popular picture format. Provides the best quality/file size ratio. It is used everywhere, so you can save any screenshots in this format;
BMP format: uncompressed image format. It is better to save in it those pictures that you later intend to edit;
GIF format: It is also recommended to use the screenshot format in this format for publishing on the Internet or sending an email. Provides good compression, along with fairly acceptable quality.

However, you can try out the formats experimentally: save a few screenshots to a folder in different formats, and then compare them and determine for yourself which one suits you best.

Important! It is not always possible to take a screenshot in all programs. For example, when watching a video, if you press the PrintScreen button, most likely you will see just a black square on your screen. To take screenshots from any part of the screen and in any programs, you need special screen capture programs. The final section of this article will be about one of these programs.

2. How to take screenshots in games

Not all games allow you to take a screenshot using the classic method described above. Sometimes, even if you press a key a hundred times, nothing is saved, just one black screen (for example).

There are special programs for creating screenshots from games. One of the best of its kind (I praised her several times in my articles :))- this is Fraps (by the way, in addition to screenshots, it allows you to make videos from games).

F RAPS

Program description(can be found in one of my articles there and download link):

I will describe the procedure for creating screenshots in games. I will assume that you already have Fraps installed. So…

STEP BY STEP

1) After launching the program, open the “ScreenShots” section. In this section of the Fraps settings you need to set the following:

folder for saving screenshots (in the example below this is the default folder: C:\Fraps\Screenshots);
button to create a screenshot (for example, F10 - as in the example below);
Image saving format: BMP, JPG, PNG, TGA. In general, in most cases I recommend choosing JPG, as it is the most popular and frequently used (and also provides the best quality/size).

Fraps: setting up screenshots

2) Then start the game. If Fraps is working, then in the upper left corner you will see yellow numbers: this is the number of frames per second (the so-called FPS). If the numbers are not shown, Fraps may not be enabled or you have changed the default settings.

Note: Screenshots are saved by default to the folder: C:\Fraps\Screenshots.

3. Creating screenshots from the film

It’s not always easy to get a screenshot from a movie - sometimes, instead of a frame of the movie, you’ll just see a black screen on the screen (as if nothing was displayed in the video player when the screen was created).

The easiest way to take a screenshot while watching a movie is to use a video player that has a special function for creating screenshots (by the way, many modern players now support this function). Personally, I want to stop at Pot Player.

P o t Player

Pot Player logo

Why do I recommend him? Firstly, it opens and efficiently plays almost all popular video formats that can be found on the Internet. Secondly, it opens videos even if you do not have codecs installed on your system (since it has all the main codecs in its kit). Thirdly, fast operation speed, minimum freezes and other unnecessary “baggage”.

And this is how to take a screenshot in Pot Player:

1) This will take literally a few seconds. First, open the desired video in this player. Next, we find the required moment that needs to be screened - and press the button “ Capture the current frame"(it is located at the bottom of the screen, see screenshot below).

Pot Player: Capture the current frame

2) Actually, after one click the “Capture…” button - your screen has already been saved to a folder. To find it, click on the same button, just with the right mouse button - in the context menu you will see the option to select a saving format and a link to the folder in which the screenshots are saved (“ Open folder with images", example below).

Pot Player. Selecting format and save folder

Is it possible to make a screenshot faster? I don’t know... In general, I recommend using both the player itself and its ability to screenshot...

Option No. 2: use special. screenshot programs

For example, FastStone (one of the best programs for creating screenshots):

1) Launch the program and press the capture button - .

2) Next, you can select the area of the screen that you want to screenshot - just select the player window. The program will remember this area and open it in the editor - all you have to do is save it. Convenient and fast! An example of such a screen is presented below.

Creating a screenshot in the FastStone program

4. Creating a “beautiful” screenshot: with arrows, captions, uneven edge trimming, etc.

Screenshot to screenshot - discord. It is much clearer to understand what you wanted to show on the screen when there is some kind of arrow on it, something needs to be underlined, signed, etc.

To do this, you need to additionally edit the screen. If you use a special built-in editor in one of the programs for creating screenshots, then this operation is not so routine; many typical tasks are performed literally in 1-2 mouse clicks!

Here I want to show with an example how you can make a “beautiful” screen with arrows, captions, and edge trimming.

All actions step by step:

I will use - F astStone .

1) After starting the program, select the area that we will screen. Then we select it, FastStone, by default, the picture should be opened in its “simple” editor (note: which has everything you need).

3) The drawing window that opens has everything you need:

Note! If you drew something unnecessary: just press the hot keys Ctrl+Z - and your last drawn element will be deleted.

4) And, lastly, to make jagged edges on the picture: click the Edge button - then adjust the “crop” size, and click “OK”. Then you can see what happens (example in the screenshot below: where to click, and how to get a trim :)).

5. What to do if you can’t take a screenshot

It happens that you screen it and screen it, but the image is not saved (that is, instead of a picture, there is either just a black area, or there is nothing at all). Programs for creating screenshots sometimes cannot screenshot a window (especially if administrator rights are required to access it).

In general, in those cases when you are unable to take a screenshot, I recommend trying one very interesting program GreenShot.

G reenShot

This is a special program with a large number of options, the main focus of which is obtaining screenshots from various applications. The developers claim that their program is able to work almost “directly” with a video card, receiving an image that is broadcast to the monitor. Therefore, you can capture the screen of any application!

Editor in GreenShot - inserting an arrow.

It’s probably pointless to list all the advantages, but here are the main ones:

The screenshot can be taken from any program, i.e. in general, everything that is visible on your screen can be filmed;

The program remembers the area of the previous screenshot, and thus you can shoot the areas you need in a constantly changing picture;

GreenShot can convert your screenshot on the fly into the format you need, for example, “jpg”, “bmp”, “png”;

The program has a convenient graphic editor that can easily add an arrow to the screen, trim the edges, reduce the size of the screen, add an inscription, etc.

Note! If this program is not enough for you, I recommend reading the article about.

The Android operating system has a function for creating screenshots. They are done by simultaneously pressing the “power off” + “volume down” keys for a few fractions of seconds. Almost always this manipulation works and the screenshot is saved. However, some users under certain circumstances may see the following message when attempting to take a screenshot: " Failed to save screenshot. The drives may be busy“We’ll try to figure out how to fix this problem below.

Causes of the “Could not save screenshot” error in Android

The first reason why Android may complain about the drives being busy when trying to take a screenshot may be that they are simply filled to capacity. That is, there is no space in the internal memory of the smartphone/tablet and on the memory card to save the picture.

The second reason is not so obvious. Android may also issue a message about storage occupancy when there is no folder in the file system provided by the system for saving the corresponding files. Yes, it usually creates the Screenshots directory automatically if it is missing, but something can go wrong. How to fix the message “The screenshot could not be saved. The drives may be busy" further.

How to fix the error with taking a screenshot on Android

Fixing the problem with saving a screenshot on Android is quite simple. First of all you will need check if there is enough space on the medium on which screenshots are saved. This can be done in any file manager (including standard ones). If the drive is full to capacity, you will need to delete some files to free up space. To do this, you can check the system for garbage using the CCleaner application or delete the application cache (Settings - Applications - Clear cache). You can also remove a couple of unnecessary files or programs.

If you have enough free space on your drive (not much is needed to take a screenshot), then the problem is likely missing folder. In this case, to fix the problem in order to take a screenshot, you will need to perform the following series of actions:

Go to the file manager;
Find the Pictures folder and open it;
Check if there is a Screenshots directory in it;
If the Screenshots folder is missing, you will need to create it;
Reboot the device.

After performing all these manipulations, creating screenshots using standard system tools should work. If Android still reports an error “The screenshot could not be saved. The drives may be busy", then try, for example, take any photo. If it persists, then the problem is not with memory and you can breathe a sigh of relief. The fact is that the phone’s flash memory (and, in particular, memory cards) sometimes breaks, which is why the system cannot write new files to it.

Next step- go to the Google Play Market and download from it any application you like for creating screenshots. Read the instructions describing how to use the program and take screenshots using it. This is the easiest and most guaranteed working method that allows you to take screenshots when the corresponding standard Android function does not work.

Greetings to all!

Screenshots are an integral part of working on a computer, and each of us sometimes needs to take them. And it’s really sad when Print Screen doesn’t work for some reason - you just want to break the keyboard. However, this will not help the matter... 👀

You can, of course, take a photo of the screen with your phone or camera, however, the image quality will be worse. You can do something even more radical, like the blonde in the preview picture on the left (but this is really funny ☝).

In this article I will offer several options on how to solve this problem in simpler and more sensible ways. Even if your button is completely “ripped out” by the roots and it simply doesn’t physically exist, it doesn’t matter, this article should help you!

What can you do if you have problems with Print Screen?

1) First, check the special. keys

On some keyboards (seen only on PC) there is a special key F Lock. When you press it, the value of some specials changes. and function keys. If you have a key like this, try disabling it...

Regarding laptops, then they often have all these keys (F1 - F12, Print Screen, Pause, etc.) have a double meaning, which can be activated using the key Fn(Sometimes Alt). So, try pressing the following keyboard shortcut:

Fn+Print Screen (then open Paint and check if the screen will be inserted);
Alt+Print Screen

Another point is that the key Fn It might just not work! For example, it can be disabled in the BIOS (check if it works with other function keys).

👉To help!

Main reasons problems with key .

Also please note, did you install any programs the day before, for example, Yandex screenshots (included with Yandex disk), OneDrive, Dropbox, Snipping tool, etc.

The fact is that they can “intercept” the creation of a screenshot in order to automatically save it to a cloud drive. If there is such software, open it settings (see screenshot below 👇) and disable the Print Screen key interception.

2) You can install special. utility for creating screenshots

I think that many will agree with me that pressing the Print Screen button and then opening Paint (or another editor)- not always convenient and fast.

It is much more convenient to install a special application in which you can create and save a screenshot directly to disk with one click (or automatically upload it to the network or add it to the editor).

Moreover, in all programs for creating screenshots (in 99%) - you can change the button to create them! I would recommend the following software: Capture, Snagit, PicPick, Light Shot.

👉 To help!

Find the best screenshot software.

3) You can reassign one key to another

If in the previous method we simply assigned a hot key for one program, then in this I propose a more radical one - change globally for all programs and the Print Screen system, say, to Shift or Home. Here, see for yourself which key would suit you best instead of the one that doesn’t work.

The change happens quite quickly, just run one of the utilities: Key Remapper, KeyTweak, MapKeyboard.

MapKeyboard: just three steps to change a key

4) Call the on-screen keyboard

Not everyone knows that Windows has a special center with interesting tools: a screen magnifier, an on-screen keyboard (you can click on it with the mouse), etc.

This section is located at:

Control Panel -> Accessibility -> Ease of Access Center

(to open - press Win+R and enter the command control) .

Control Panel - Accessibility - Ease of Access Center (Clickable)

Actually, the on-screen keyboard has all the buttons as on a regular (physical) one. You can click on the desired key and use your PC as usual...

5) Try cleaning the keyboard, if there is no effect, replace it with a new one

In most cases, the keys stop working and begin to work poorly due to dust, crumbs and other debris that accumulates under them. There are several ways to clean your keyboard:

just turn it over and knock: all the crumbs and dust will fly out of it (if you want to do this with a laptop, first disconnect the keyboard from the device!);
There are special keyboard vacuum cleaners - they can quickly collect all the excess under the keys (you can also use a regular vacuum cleaner, by the way);
There are special “lickers” on sale - keyboard cleaners. The principle of their work is simple: you glue them to the keyboard, they spread, and then you “tear them off” along with the dust and debris.

Another “collective farm” old-fashioned way of cleaning the keyboard:

remove the keyboard (disconnect from PC);
wash it in warm water with detergent (for example, Fairy);
dry it well;
assemble, connect and try in action. Even in the saddest cases (for example, with juice or coffee) - the method helps out! True, I’ll make a reservation: you do everything at your own peril and risk, I can’t give any guarantees...

If all of the above did not help, there is only one way out, buy a new keyboard (so that they are not so expensive).

👉 To help!

You can save a lot if you order a keyboard .