Purrint turns your PrtSc button into an actual Print Screen button

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Purrint turns your PrtSc button into an actual Print Screen button

by Brad Linder Feb 29th 2008

The Print Screen key on most computers is really just there to taunt you. Seriously, what other purpose could it have? Hitting it doesn't actually print anything. It just copies an image to your clipboard. Who thought that was a good idea? Well, sure, copying to your clipboard is handy, but shouldn't the key be called "Copy Screen?"

If you'd like to make the Print Screen button do what is promises though, check out Purrint. This tiny little Windows utility hangs out in your system tray and changes the behavior of your keyboard's most baffling button. When you hit Print Screen, a window will pop up asking if you want to copy the screen to your clipboard, save the image as a file, or actually print it.

You can also click the options button to set the default behavior and skip this pop-up menu altogether.

[via gHacks]

Tags: print-screen, purrint

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

buster said 9:17PM on 2-29-2008

does not work with vista
otherwise works great with xp
vista does have the snipping tool which is awesome

Jason said 9:17PM on 2-29-2008

I rather think you'd be better off using Gadwin Printscreen and having a more robust app making use of your Print Screen button.

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

Yelmi said 9:17PM on 2-29-2008

What other purpose could it have? Gadwin PrintScreen. Made the key really useful and changed my life.

RP said 11:38PM on 2-29-2008

Thanks for some "innovation"! How hard would it have been for Microsoft to do this, say, 10 years ago in Win98?

IsNoGood said 4:25AM on 3-01-2008

Well my Prt Scr, work just fine just hit "Ctrl shift Prt scr" and
then ctrl +v into ex. word or some other program that is DDE enabled
and is able to hold the screen dump

Viper007Bond said 7:41AM on 3-01-2008

Are you guys seriously young enough that you don't remember back when the "Print Screen" button would literally print the screen via your printer?

Fred Thompson said 7:42AM on 3-01-2008

That would be over a Centronics port, I'll have you know. You haven't lived until you've manually reinked a fabric printer ribbon...

Fred Thompson said 7:42AM on 3-01-2008

You haven't lived until you've manually reinked a fabric printer ribbon or tried to quiet a 9-pin printer by holding a blanket on it...

IsNoGood said 7:44AM on 3-01-2008

Well my Prt Scr, well just fine just hit "Ctrl shift Prt scr" and then ctrl +v into ex. word or some other program that is DDE enabled and is able to hold the screen dump

brian said 8:38AM on 3-01-2008

@buster: It deos work with vista

buster said 1:12PM on 3-01-2008

Well when I tried it with Vista Ultimate it only would grab the desktop, not the window in the foreground. But like I said, I then found Vista's built-in snipping tool which works very well. Go ahead and run SnippingTool.exe. I still use purrrint on my xp systems though.

Haplo said 1:41PM on 3-02-2008

Come on! That button actually printed (in your printer) your screen back in the day. You seriously didn't know that?

Scribdog said 4:51PM on 3-03-2008

If you use the Alt key with the Print screen button it will grab the active window so you can paste it. If you use the Windows key with the Print screen button it will bring up the system properties. At least in XP anyway. I use it all the time.

Gardiner Westbound said 8:13AM on 3-07-2008

Hit Print Screen and paste into MSPaint. There the image can be cropped, resized and whatever.

MSPaint is paid for and installed. No need for another infrequent-use program in the systray lengthening boot time and absorbing processing power.

pLAYER said 8:36AM on 4-08-2008

yea.. i complety agree with you..

Sunny Rivers said 8:02PM on 4-29-2008

Enjoyed the tips and suggestions in the comments.

I have used Purrint for years and I love it's simplicity. I have been on many webinars where they do not provide a PDF copy of their presentation, and with the "save to file" button it makes it so easy to snap rapid fire screenshots of each page of the presentation. Then it is a simple matter of cropping, and dropping into powerpoint or word document.

I just got a new laptop running Vista, and cannot make Purrint work. I tried using Vista's Snip program - it does a fine screen shot, but it is slower to use because you have to draw a box around what you want to capture, and that is too slow to create rapid fire images.

I also tried the suggestion - hit "Ctrl shift Prt scr" and then ctrl +v into ex. word - could not get that to work on Vista either.

Would love to have Purrint running with Vista! It has been my favorite screenprint program for years.

babyy; said 6:47AM on 5-24-2008

my doesn't just pop up. does it work for laptops. help :].

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