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I know on Windows 8 you can use this hidden shortcut to take a screenshot of the screen and copy it to your clipboard, but I'm looking for an application where I can either set up a shortcut or has its own shortcut which would then save the current window to my clipboard.

I don't care about editing the images, saving them anywhere, anything fancy. All I want is to be able to put it on the clipboard so I can easily open up Imgur or SE chat and paste to upload them.

Optimally, there'd be another alternative shortcut which would let me select which area of the screen to actually take a screenshot of, but that's not a requirement. In a dream work I'd basically have a 1-to-1 clone of the OS X utility Grab but I don't think anything that easy exists.

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7 Answers 7

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You don't need a tool, you can use AltPrtSc to take a screenshot of the currently selected window. Works on all versions of windows.

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  • WinKey+S also lets you copy a region of the screen. Available since Windows 7 at least.
    – frozenkoi
    Commented May 23, 2014 at 0:12
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    @frozenkoi Win+S opens search in Windows 8
    – phuclv
    Commented Jun 8, 2014 at 13:06
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I recommend greenshot. It is actually better than built-in snipping tool since you can customize following points:

  • Where to save each screenshot
  • Save to file automatically
  • save to clipboard

You can customize this tool so that taking repeated screenshots are more easier than built-in snipping tool. This tool also works with WindowsXP+

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    It also has excellent tools to augment the screenshot with text and drawings.
    – sixtyfootersdude
    Commented Mar 6, 2014 at 18:17
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    I use greenshot and it is pretty good if you want something that is no frills and works well. Not the same caliber as SnagIt but a capable alternative.
    – Michael Lai
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 23:49
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If you're using Windows 7+ and want to select the area that you capture, you can use the "Snipping Tool" that comes with Windows.

It can be run from "C:\Windows\System32\snippingtool.exe" or by typing Snipping Tool in the start menu. This then lets you select the area and you can copy to the clipboard.

Unfortunately it doesn't have a keyboard shortcut but just another option if it helps.

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  • You can create a shortcut (e.g. on the desktop) and assign a keyboard shortcut. Unfortunately, you still have to click the 'New' button for capturing a screenshot.
    – ComFreek
    Commented Jun 8, 2014 at 14:33
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I would suggest you look at PMView. It's Windows 8 compatible (and older versions of Windows as well). It supports all manor of screen capture capabilities. You can set it to capture on hot-key, full screen, just a window, or a specific portion of the screen. It supports a capture timer or on-demand and if the UI based configurations don't suit you it also has a very extensive command-line feature-set for building shortcuts to execute actions, and macros.

I've used it for years and swear by it.

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3

I have been using Skitch, which runs as a little helper in the tray and launches a selection tool on Ctrl-Shift-5. Once you snap, you can Ctrl-C to get the image in the clipboard. You don't need an evernote account to use it, and I've found it has the best parity with built-in OSX screenshot tools for my usage.

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The Snipping tool also has an option to take a window, not just your selection. I played around with the options one time and was surprised.

Snipping Tool options

You can do a window as well as free form. Once captured, the image is on the clipboard.

If you somehow lose it on the clipboard, you can select the Snipping Tool window, press CTRL-A (for select all) and then CTRL-C (for copy) and then it's back on the clipboard.

The Snipping Tool also has rudimentary highlighting and drawing built into it.

From what I can tell, the Snipping Tool is still available in Windows 8.

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I have used Screenshot Captor on Windows XP before I upgraded to Windows 7. It's a full featured tool with lots of options. Once I found the Snipping Tool, and I finished that class, I didn't need so many of those options, so I settled for the snipping tool. However, this is a great piece of software, and they have been keeping up with it and say it's compatible with the latest and greatest from Microsoft.

Screenshot Captor

enter image description here

You can grab windows, take rapid screenshots, preview the screenshot before saving (or just save it for later), and it looks like they have added a bunch of other new features.

It's free for home users, so I guess that means business users are supposed to pay up.

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