Screenshots are a convenient way to take high-quality stills of your laptop screen (or part of the screen) that you can then use to save or share information. You can even edit the screenshots, making the most out of the information you’re trying to capture. ASUS laptops, like all other major brands, have the ability to take screenshots — but how exactly do you take one?
On an ASUS laptop, you can use the ‘PrtSc’ button to save a screenshot of the full screen to your clipboard, or ‘Win’ + ‘PrtSc’ to save it to your computer. You can also use the Snipping Tool to take a screenshot of a smaller section of the screen.
Let’s take a closer look at how to take screenshots using your ASUS laptop, as well as how to change the location where they’re saved, how to edit them, and what to do if screenshots aren’t working for some reason.
How to Take a Screenshot on an ASUS Laptop
There are two primary ways to take a screenshot on an ASUS laptop; you can use the trackpad or the keyboard. Let’s go through each method:
Using the Keyboard
There are three options for taking a screenshot using the keyboard.
The first is to press PrtSc. This will take a snapshot of the entire screen currently in front of you and save it to your clipboard. You can then copy and paste it into an editing program or into an email. If you copy something else before you paste the screenshot, you’ll lose the screenshot.
Pressing Win + PrtSc, however, will take the entire screenshot and save it to your computer instead.
Alt + PrtSc works much like just pressing PrtSc but, instead of saving the entire screen to your clipboard, it saves one window instead. It will be the window at the front of your current tasks.
Using the Trackpad
If you want to take a screenshot of just a portion of the screen, you can use the trackpad.
Open the Windows menu by hitting the logo key on your laptop keyboard and type ‘Snip’. Launch the Snipping Tool, drag your mouse over a certain portion of the laptop screen, and release to save.
How to Locate Your Screenshots on Your Computer
By default, any screenshots saved to the computer (not the clipboard) go into a dedicated folder that’s accessible at C:/Users/user name>/Pictures/Screenshots.
You can access this by heading into your Pictures folder, and there’s usually a shortcut on the Windows Start menu. If you can’t find this, you can choose Win + R for the run menu and enter the above folder name directly, though you should make sure to replace ‘user name’ with the name on your computer.
If you’re not sure what your username is, follow these steps:
- Press Ctrl + Alt + Del.
- Click Task Managers.
- Click Users.
Your username should be listed there. It’s usually your full name, which you entered when setting up the computer.
Can You Change Where Your Screenshots Go?
If you want to change the location of where your screenshots are saved, you should find the aforementioned folder in Pictures. You can right click on the folder, choose Properties, and adjust the Location to change where your screenshots are automatically saved.
If you use screenshots a lot, it’s a good idea to set up a shortcut icon to this location on your desktop, so that you can easily find it again when you need to with just a double click.
Screenshots Not Working? Here’s How to Troubleshoot
If your screenshots aren’t working properly, the first thing you need to do is check that you’re using one of the methods that involves saving screenshots to your computer, not your clipboard. The clipboard is where you copy and paste from, and it can only save one thing at a time, whereas saving to the computer means that everything will go into the designated folder.
If you’re using the right method and it still isn’t working, then it’s time to take further action:
Restart Your Computer
The first thing to do is to restart your computer. This can fix all manner of bugs and glitches that may pop up, especially if you’ve had your computer running for a long time and haven’t given it a break. Try restarting your computer and then seeing if screenshotting works.
Double Check the Location
You should go into the properties of the screenshot folder to check you haven’t set the location to somewhere else. Your screenshots may actually be saving somewhere else, and you might not be looking in the right place.
Check the Keys
If you usually take screenshots using the keyboard, the issue could be that some of the keys aren’t working. To check this, you should try using each key in other scenarios to make sure it’s working — and that it’s purely screenshots that seem to be having issues.
If one of the necessary keys doesn’t work in any other situation, there could be an actual hardware issue with the keyboard and you may need a professional to check it out.
How to Edit Screenshots
There are a few different ways you can edit screenshots:
Using Windows
By pressing Win + Shift + S, you can bring up some basic editing tools that will help you crop and mark up a screenshot. This is handy for cropping information you don’t want the receiver to see and for highlighting certain things in the screenshot that you do want them to look at.
The tools provided here are, however, fairly basic, so you’re fairly limited in what you can do.
Photo Editing Software
You can also use third-party photo editing software, such as Photoshop. Here, you can go more in depth into editing and cropping, moving sections, highlighting, and even combining screenshots into one image.
If you don’t have Photoshop, there are free editing programs that are much cheaper, so you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money.
How to Send Screenshots to Other People
If you’ve copied and pasted your screenshot to the clipboard using PrtSc, then you’ll have to send it to someone using Ctrl + V (for the paste command). You should be able to drop this directly into an email or messaging app.
If you’ve saved it to your computer, you’ll have to attach it to an email or messaging program instead of pasting it in. You can usually do this by finding the Attach button that looks like a paperclip.
If you have a screenshot on your clipboard and need to send it to someone but can only attach it, the best thing to do is paste it into a photo editing platform and save it from there. You could also go to Google Docs, paste it as an image, and then screenshot it again — but this time use the command that will save it to your computer rather than the clipboard.
Final Thoughts
All in all, taking screenshots on an ASUS laptop is a fairly easy process. The PrtSc button can be used to take a screenshot and save it to your clipboard, and you can use other options for saving to your computer. There’s also a variety of different options for storing and editing screenshots, so make sure to try them out and see what works best for you.