Screen Dumps

If you have a problem with your computer it is often useful to show us exactly what the screen looks like. You can do this by taking a copy of the screen and sending it to us. This copy of the screen is known as a 'screen dump'.

Overview

This is the overall process

Step	Action
1	Take a screen dump
2	Save the screen dump in Paint or Word
3	Email the screen dump

Saving the screen dump using Paint

Step	Action	Result
1	Find the Ctrl key (either one), and the Print Screen key (It is to the right of F12, and is labelled 'Prt Scrn / SysReq' or similar).
2	Press Ctrl + Print Screen.	This takes a screen dump of the entire screen, and stores it in the Notepad.
3	Start the Paint application.(This is how to do it on Windows XP:Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint)	The Paint application opens.
4	Press Ctrl + V (Paste)	This pastes the screen dump into the Paint window.
5	Save the image(Press File > Save As, select a title and location, and save the image as a GIF file, about 40 KB)	The image is saved.
6	Send the image as an email attachment to your support person, with an explanation of what it is about.

Instead of Ctrl + Print Screen you can use Shift+ Print Screen and Alt + Print Screen, which do very similar things.

Saving the screen dump in a Word document
If you don't have Paint you can use this method.

Step	Action	Result
1	Find the Ctrl key (either one), and the Print Screen key (It is to the right of F12, and is labelled 'Prt Scrn / SysReq' or similar).
2	Press Ctrl + Print Screen.	This takes a screen dump of the entire screen, and stores it in the Notepad.
3	Open a Word document and click where you want the image to appear.
4	Press Ctrl + V (Paste)	This pastes the screen dump into the Word document.
5	Save the Word document	The document is saved.
6	Send the image as an email attachment to your support person, with an explanation of what it is about.

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