What is the Print Screen Key?

Print Screen is one among many keys which is present on the keyboard. It is abbreviated as PrtScr, Prsc,r, PrtScrn, PRTSC, PrntScrn, Ps/SR. When this key is pressed, it sends the image of the screen on the desktop at that moment to the computer printer or clipboard based on the operating system or program.

Print Screen

The print screen gives users a screenshot, also known as screen capture is an image that we take of a computer's or monitor's screen at that moment. The Windows operating system allows users to take screenshots in many ways using different tools.

The below pointer shows the location of the print screen key on the keyboard:

Location of print Screen key on the keyboard

This print screen key has other control keys like Scroll Lock, Pause, Insert, Home, PageUp, Delete, End, PageDown, etc.

Will all the keyboards contain this key?

No, all keyboards don't contain this PrintScreen key. When we look into keyboards of apple computers, this key is not present, but they will be having 'F13 function key’.

Also, not all computer keyboards have the same position for this PrintScreen key.

In the keyboard of Lenovo, this key is present between the left Alt and Ctrl keys.

In some Microsoft keyboards, this key is on top of the F8 key.

Regarding laptop keyboards, this key is present after the F12 key.

What happens when PrtScrn is used with Alt?

Computers having Microsoft Windows installed on them, the computer takes only a picture of the window, which is active at that moment instead of everything present on the screen.

If you consider an example of resizing the browser window while reading the page, if you press 'Alt+PtrScrn', this creates a screenshot of the only resized window, not the older bid window.

Can we print to the printer by using PrtScrn?

For this question, the answer is no in most situations because the PrtScrn key is used to take a screen capture and store it in the clipboard. After that, that image can be edited in the image editor. Then, you can move and print it to the printer.        

How to do printing of screen on PC?

While taking a screenshot, first of all, we have to check which version of windows is installed in our computer. If we have new versions of windows, like 8 or 10, you can take screenshots through keyboard shortcut keys, but for older versions, we require more menus to take a screenshot.

For Windows 8 or 10, do the following to take a screen capture:

1. Select the screen on which you want to take a picture. It can be a program, browser window, or any application. The computer won't be able to take the image capture if you don't have already loaded that window.
2. Look for the position of the print screen key on the keyboard.
3. Then press the "windows" key and "print screen" key at the same time. This makes the screenshot of an entire window, while taking the screen capture, the screen will become dim, which makes us know that screenshot is taken successfully.
4. If you want to check the screenshot, go to This PC > Pictures > Screenshots.

In older versions of windows (less than windows 8):

1. Start the process by pressing the “prtscrn” button that is typically present on the upper-right-hand side of the keyboard beside the function keys.
2. Some laptops contain the "Fn" key. Then we have to press simultaneously press the "Fn" and "PrtScrn" key.
3. Then open "MS Paint" by clicking on the start menu. Or you can type the paint in the search box to get the paint icon directly.
4. The screenshot taken must be pasted into MS Paint by clicking "Ctrl+V" simultaneously.
5. Then the image will get into MS Paint, so save it into hardware of the computer.
6. Finally, save the image by clicking "Ctrl+S", which shows the destination options where you can save it. The screenshot file type can also be chosen like png or jpeg, but for screenshots choosing "png" is the best option which will retain the image quality.