How To Take Website Screenshots

At Primal Space digital agency, we use website screenshots a lot when communicating with our clients. Particularly over email, as well as communicating ideas within our team. Annotated screenshots can be a really straightforward and beneficial way to convey thoughts. While showing clear visuals of areas of a website. Without having to write long paragraphs explaining the location on the site and the outcome required.

These are an invaluable tool, that having access to and the knowledge of how to use will be a skill that your website developer will thank you for.

Which Screenshot Software Should I Choose?

There are a quite a few tools out there that can easily be installed to add this screenshot functionality to your browser. Our favourite is the free app called Nimbus Screenshot which can be downloaded free on Google Chrome. The set up process is really straight-forward, even if you’re a technical novice. Once set up you’ll find that the Nimbus Screenshot icon has been added to the dashboard of your Chrome browser and is ready to use. This tool can also be used for taking a video in your browser and has free and paid options available.

Your Nimbus Screenshot App is installed, what next?

If you click on this icon a few options will appear. The one you’ll mainly use is also the first one the list to capture the visible part of the page. By clicking this option a screenshot of the area of the website shown on your browser will open in a new tab.

We then have a few editing options available if desired. Here are our most used and why;

• Square/Shape Tool – To highlight a specific area within the page
• Arrow Tool – To direct the viewer to a specific area on the page
• Text Tool – To annotate the screenshot

If you hover over each of the icons on the menu area at the top of the page it will pop up with what the icon does. Therefore, the system is really straightforward to navigate and super user friendly. While if you make a mistake and want to return to a previous edit, you can always hit the back button arrow. Or simply close the window and take the screenshot again.

Finally once you’ve edited your screenshot you can click the ‘Done’ button. This will allow you to save your screenshot to your downloads. As a result the screenshot can be emailed as an attachment from here.

Other Options for Taking Screenshots

An alternative way to take screenshots is using the print screen option on your keyboard. This can be achieved by pressing down ‘control’ + ‘prt sc’ simultaneously on your key board. The print screen button is usually located just above the back space key on your keyboard, in the top left side.

The next step is to save your screenshot. To do this hold down the windows icon + ‘prt sc’ again. The windows icon is usually located beside control and alt to bottom left of your key board. This will have worked if the screen flickers black momentarily.

To access your screenshot, you can do this by navigating to the photos folder in your computers documents and files area. The screenshots will be saved in a folder here with the same name. You can then edit your screenshots using your Microsoft photo editor.

Website Screenshots Made Easy

The Nimbus Screenshot app is a great tool which makes taking screenshots for web use both easy and fast and is the one we would most recommend to our clients. Our agency has used a few other screenshot platforms, however we’ve found this one to be by far the best out there.  There’s also print screen which can be used as an alternative, however it takes a little bit longer as you then need to edit the screenshot in an external editing program. We hope you find this post helpful in allowing you to take screenshots with ease.

Did you find this blog post helpful? Let us know. You can find more useful tips in the blog area of our website.