Here are all the methods to take screenshots on your Chromebook. Most Windows or macOS users know how to take a screenshot on their devices, however, if you just bought a new Chromebook, you probably don’t know how to do it yet. But don’t worry, if that’s your case, there is nothing to worry about.
And it is that in this article, we will show you what are the steps you must follow to take screenshots on your Chromebook. So we recommend that you read this guide to the end.
Methods to take screenshots on your Chromebook
Once you know the right combinations to take screenshots it will be very easy to do the task. It will only take a few seconds and these are the steps you must follow to achieve it:
- To take a screenshot of the entire screen: Press the Ctrl + Show Window keys simultaneously. You will be able to see the first key in the lower-left corner of the keyboard, and the second in the top row (you will be able to recognize it since it has an image of a rectangle with two lines to the right, it has a similar location to the F5 key on a PC ).
- To capture a portion of the screen: Press the Ctrl + Shift + Show window keys at the same time, and then select the portion of the screen you want to capture, dragging the cursor to shade the area, and then release the keys to execute the capture.
Once done, a message or notification will appear on the screen to notify you that the image was saved successfully.
Find your screenshot inside your Chromebook
Now that you know how to take screenshots, it’s time to find out where you can find it. Well, following these steps you can find it without too many problems:
- Open the main menu.
- Then, click on the My Documents option.
- Once there, select the Downloads option and there you can locate all your screenshots.
- Keep in mind that all the screenshots you take will be automatically saved in this location, and you can refer to them whenever you want.
If you want to save your capture in the cloud, you will have to do it manually with a few simple steps:
Locate the screenshot, following the steps detailed previously.
- Select the file.
- Click on the Share icon, located in the upper right corner.
- To finish, select the option Save to Drive, and that’s it.
- Copy the screenshot to the clipboard
Another big difference with Windows is that Chrome OS does not save the captures as copies. However, if you wish, you can select the Copy to clipboard option from the pop-up notification that will appear immediately after a capture has been made, and you can paste it wherever you want.
But, if you forgot to select this option in time and the notification disappeared, no need to worry, you can do it the old way, selecting the capture and pressing Ctrl + C to copy and Ctrl + V to paste the file.
Edit your screenshots
Conveniently, Chrome OS includes an image editor that you can use to improve the quality of the captures you take. To do so, you just have to follow the steps that we detail below the letter:
- Open the Downloads folder to locate the screenshot you want to edit.
- Double-click on the image to open it in Chrome’s built-in image viewer.
- Once there, select the pencil icon that you will find in the upper right corner.
- Select Edit Mode to see the editing tools at the bottom of the screen.
- Then click the pencil icon again to finish editing.
- Take snapshots when your Chromebook is in Tablet mode
If you are using your Chromebook in tablet mode, or you use one of these devices based on Chrome OS and you do not have direct access to the keyboard or it is inactive, it will be enough to simultaneously press the power button + the volume down button.
Also, if you have a Chromebook with a built-in stylus, it has an additional option available. When you use the stylus, you will have a menu of tools available in the lower right corner of the screen. Within that menu, you can capture a region of the screen (and use the stylus to draw this region) or capture the entire screen.
You can also use Chrome extensions
Google Chrome has some very useful extensions that will allow you to add more functions to your captures. Here we recommend the most useful and easy to use:
Lightshot – This is a beginner’s alternative. You can drag and drop a capture anywhere on the screen, edit it and upload it to the cloud, in short, it is a very useful tool.
FireShot – it is the best tool to capture an entire page without taking multiple separate captures, and it also allows you to save it in various formats and send it to OneNote, ready to share.
As you can see, taking a screenshot in Chrome OS is not too difficult, it is just a matter of knowing the appropriate key combinations and the other tricks that we have shown you.