Screen Dumps
Introduction
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. |