Screenshots with PowerPoint (Part I)

In this post, I explain how to capture a screenshot on a Windows PC and use PowerPoint to crop, position and stretch your screenshot to prepare it for export in JPEG graphic format.

1 Capture Your Screenshot

Display the screen that you want to screenshot. Press Fn-Print Screen. On my keyboard, I need to depress the blue “Fn” function key to get access to the blue Print Screen key. Look around your keyboard and determine what key sequence you need to press to access the Print Screen function.

Pressing Fn-Print Screen saves a copy of your current screen in the copy & paste buffer. But, it’s no good there. So, how do you save your cut & paste buffer to a JPEF file?

You need to use a program that can export JPEF files. A program like Microsoft PowerPoint.

2 Create a PowerPoint Slide Deck

Start PowerPoint and double-click on Blank Presentation to create a slide deck in which to save your screenshots. You should be looking at a new PowerPoint presentation with one white slide with two text boxes on it.

3 Five Ways to Delete Unwanted Text Boxes

When you initially create a new simple white presentation in which to paste a screen snapshot, PowerPoint displays two text boxes on the one and only slide. You don’t need two text boxes on your slide.

It turns out there are five ways to get rid of the unwanted text boxes. In this section, I provide all five ways to make a point: there’s more than one way to do almost everything in PowerPoint… and in life. Be open and experimental with PowerPoint… and with life.

Note that all five methods produce the same result: a slide deck containing a single blank slide.

3.1 Replace the Slide

Right-click on the slide in the Navigation Pane along the left side of the screen. Select the “Delete” menu item. Click the Insert menu. Click New Slide in the far left of the menu ribbon and select “Blank” from the dropdown menu. Use this method to change the slide type to a type other than blank.

3.2 Change the Slide Layout

Right-click on your slide in the Navigation Pane along the left side of the screen. Go down to the “Layout” menu item and select “Blank”. Use this method to quickly change the slide type to a type other than blank.

3.3 Ctrl-Select and Delete

Hold down the Ctrl key while left-clicking on the edge of each unwanted text box to select the text boxes to remove. Press the “Delete” key. Use this method to selectively remove text boxes.

3.4 Click-and-Drag and Delete

Left-click and hold the mouse button down while dragging across the two text boxes to select them both. Press the “Delete” key. Use this method to quickly select and delete the text boxes.

3.5 Ctrl-A Select All and Delete

Press Ctrl-A to select everything on the current slide. Press the “Delete” key. This is the quickest method because your hands don’t need to leave the keyboard.

Choose your favorite method and get rid of the unwanted text boxes.