Unlock the Full Potential of Snipping Tool

Snipping Tool has come a long way since its inception, offering a wide range of features that cater to both beginners and power users. As a default app for screenshots in Windows 11, it provides a seamless experience for capturing and editing images. In this article, we’ll delve into 10 essential Snipping Tool hacks that every Windows 11 user should know.

Source: lifehacker.com

Extracting Text from Images

One of the most common uses of screenshot tools is extracting text from images. With Snipping Tool, you can right-click any image and select ‘Open with > Snipping Tool.’ Once the photo opens, you can click the ‘Scan Text’ button to select all the text in the image. Windows will take a few moments to identify all the text in the photo, and when it’s ready, you can click ‘Copy all text’ from the popover menu. Alternatively, you can select a single sentence or block of text by clicking and dragging the cursor over it, and you can right-click this selection to reveal the ‘Copy text’ button.

Source: lifehacker.com

By using the ‘Scan Text’ feature, you can easily extract text from images without having to take a screenshot. This is particularly useful when dealing with websites that disable copying, interface elements in apps, or PDFs of scanned pages where you can’t select the text easily. To access this feature, open the Snipping Tool app, click the ‘Text extractor’ button in the toolbar, and then click and drag over an area of the screen that contains text. The app will automatically select it in a moment or two. Click ‘Copy all text’ in the popover menu, and you’re done.

Redacting Sensitive Information

Snipping Tool allows you to do some basic image editing, which you can use to automatically redact sensitive information from screenshots. Open any screenshot in Snipping Tool, click ‘Scan text,’ and once the tool scans for text, a popover menu will appear. You can select ‘Quick redact’ to automatically hide all phone numbers and email addresses in the screenshot. It’s pretty accurate and puts a black bar over sensitive information, which is much safer than blurring phone numbers and email addresses.

Setting Up a Timed Screenshot

Setting up an elaborate screenshot on your PC can be frustrating since Snipping Tool takes the screenshot instantly by default. In these instances, you can set a delay of three to 10 seconds before you capture the screen. If you have the Snipping Tool open, right-click its icon in the taskbar to quickly take a timed screenshot. Three buttons let you take a screenshot in three, five, or 10 seconds. You can also set up the Snipping Tool to always add a delay before capturing a screenshot. Open the app, click the camera icon in the toolbar, then click the timer icon in the toolbar and select the delay you wish to add.

Screencasts for Troubleshooting

When my friends or family members call for help with tech issues, I often send them a screencast with commentary to show how to fix the issue. In Snipping Tool, you can toggle a setting to include microphone audio by default when you record the screen. This lets you record your voice while you’re demonstrating how to solve the problem, and you use the mouse pointer to highlight what to click. Once you set up Snipping Tool to record your audio by default for screen recordings, this process hardly takes any time. Open Snipping Tool in your PC, click the three-dots icon in the top-right corner, select ‘Settings,’ and enable ‘Include microphone input by default when a screen recording starts.’

Producing Social Media-Ready Screenshots

When you capture screenshots, you can make Snipping Tool automatically add a solid color border to each image. This is great for posting to social media, as it makes screenshots look uniform and fit your aesthetic. Go to Snipping Tool settings and enable ‘Add border to each screenshot.’ Select the ‘Color block’ to pick the color you want for the border, and use the ‘Thickness’ slider to adjust the width of the border.

Freeform Tool for Irregular Shapes

The Freeform tool lets you draw an area on the screen, and captures a screenshot of everything inside that area. You can draw any shape you like, and the tool automatically closes small gaps in the shape to complete the screenshot. I like the fact that the Freeform tool is forgiving enough to smooth out poorly drawn shapes, which means you don’t necessarily need to have steady hands to capture useful screenshots. To use this tool, open Snipping Tool, click the camera icon in the toolbar, select the rectangle icon, and choose ‘Freeform.’ When you take the next screenshot, Snipping Tool will let you draw an irregular shape on the screen.

Disabling Automatic Saving

If you disable auto-save for screenshots, it directly copies screenshots to the clipboard. You can then make edits and send them to the app you need, or hit the save button to store the edited screenshots. This stops screenshots from piling up and adding to the clutter on your hard drive. I only need to save around one in 10 screenshots I capture, which makes this particularly useful for me. To try it out, go to Snipping Tool settings and disable ‘Automatically save original screenshots.’

Removing Faces from Photos

Snipping Tool has a ‘Shapes’ option, which is meant to hide people’s faces from images or screenshots. Here’s how it works: Once you open an image in Snipping Tool, you’ll see a bunch of editing tools in the toolbar. Select the ‘Shapes’ tool, which is next to the Eraser tool, and you’ll see a series of options. Select the Emoji tool to add an emoticon over faces. Alternatively, you can select the Square or Oval tools, but be sure to use the color fill option to hide private information thoroughly. Select ‘Fill,’ and choose a color. You can also disable the ‘Outline’ if you wish to, as it adds a border to the shape you draw on the screenshot. Then, you can draw a rectangle, square, circle, or an oval on the screenshot, and you’ll find a solid color block that can hide sensitive information.

Reverse Image Search

Snipping Tool has a reverse image search feature that uses Bing to locate objects, places, or elements from your screenshots or images. You can use this to identify subjects in an image, or to check if a scammer has copied a profile picture from a different person’s profile. To use this feature, open an image in Snipping Tool, click the three dots in the top-right corner of the app, select ‘Visual Search with Bing,’ and it will open Bing’s reverse image search results in your default browser.