Creating Screenshots

Have you ever wondered how bloggers use only a small screenshot from a website in their posts? I have the answer for you. This is an easy to use, FREE option. I use Promethean's ActivInspire. You do not have to be a Promethean user to download and use their software. On a side note, the software will work on your Smart Board or any other interactive whiteboard that you use.  But, back to the purpose of this post.


To create a screenshot (or portion of a screen shot), open ActivInspire. On the toolbar, select the DESKTOP TOOLS icon. It looks like a little blue square with tools on it. 

You will see a little blue circle with the same icon on your webpage. Be sure you have the webpage open where you will make the screenshot. When you hover over the middle of the circle, you will see a ring of icons. Hover over the camera icon, and you will see the several camera options. I always use the AREA SNAPSHOT.  The other options are also available, but they require a still hand to use because you are actually drawing the boarder.

The screen will go gray, and you will see a white box. Stretch that white box around the image you want to capture. Once you have selected the area you are going to capture, choose MY RESOURCES. I always change the location to a place easy for me to find-My Desktop, My Documents, etc. The image will be saved to that location. It does take a couple of minutes depending on the size of your picture.

Now, simply insert your image into your blog posts.

You can take it a step further by adding arrows. To do this you will need to save the image to CURRENT PAGE.  Add your arrows using the SHAPE icon in ActivInspire. Then, you will take another screenshot of that image by using the camera in the menu bar. On the menu bar at the top of ActivInspire, select TOOLS>CAMERA>AREA SNAPSHOT. Again, select MY RESOURCES.

ActivInspire also offers a free screen recorder. We will explore that in a future post. To download  a free version of ActivInspire, please {visit Promethean Planet}. 

~Cara