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Posts Tagged ‘documenting’

How to make a screenshot of your computer screen

  1. You can look it up, or:
    1. on Windows, press the “PrintScr” key (upper right corner of your keyboard)
    2. on Mac OS X, Command+Shift+3.
  2. Then paste the clipboard into an application that can handle images and that you are familiar with (your best bet may be MS-Word).

How to do a screenshot of a full web page (beyond visible portion)

I have been meaning to find a screenshot software that can show the entire portion of a window – including the “scrollable” portion, i.e. more than the visible.

A long time ago, I used to do this with HyperSnap, but this software is not free.

Screengrab which I came by today, does it nicely – within Firefox:

screengrab-fullpage

Limitation: Screengrab requires you to access the context-menu on the page via right-clicking – some web sites prevent this!

How to make screencasts in animated GIFs for free

2010/10/15 2 comments

If you want a persuasive web (blog) documentation solution for the most casual, time-pressed users and which is supported on the widest possible range of platforms;

and if you are lucky enough to work in environments where it is not the base infrastructure that forms the bottleneck (as this solution is not bandwidth optimized):

then even in the day of Flash 10, Silverlight 4 and HTML5, you might give some consideration the age-old animated GIF.

What you can visualize with animated GIFS will remain basic. But if the basics are what needs fixing, this approach can have remarkable benefits (think low-end, high-gain of the graph for “law of diminishing returns”).

I have been looking for a while for a “soup to nuts” write-up how to do this easily and for free, and experienced am unusually high noise to signal ratio. This is why I want to point to the following article that seems to fit the bill nicely:

http://omaralzabir.com/how-to-make-screencasts-in-optimized-animated-gif-for-free/ 

The author persuasively combines CamSoft, ImageMagick and the Microsoft GIF Animator.

An example to follow here.