How To Take Office 2007 - 2010 Screenshots With OneNote

You never know when you might need to take a screenshot. It could be a quick one of a cover page you just designed in MS Word or a presentation template you want an approval for. Or perhaps you just noticed a funny typo and feel like spreading it around via Twitter. It could be just about anything that needs to be said with a picture.

As we work in an increasingly ‘graphical’ environment, a screenshot aid should ideally be just a click away. MS Office 2010 has added a screenshot button to Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word under the Insert tab. If you are using Microsoft Office 2007, you also won’t miss it much because we can go back to the one MS Office program which had it in the first place.

You will find a sharp and smart screen clipping tool in Microsoft OneNote that can help you take Office 2007 screenshots of any part of the screen. Though the process is slightly indirect, it still gives you the ability to take Office 2007 screenshots with OneNote.

Using The Clip Tool From OneNote’s Toolbar

To copy any part of the screen to OneNote as an image, click on the Clip tool on the toolbar.

 

The screen turns into translucent white. Using the mouse you can drag a rectangle to take a screenshot of a partial region or the entire screen.

 

As soon as you drag and release, the screenshot is saved in an unfiled OneNote note. Also, in OneNote, you can place the pointer on a specific notes page where you want to add the screen clipping. OneNote also automatically adds a timestamp to the inserted screenshot.

OneNote also copies it to the Clipboard so you can also open any other MS Office program like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and click Paste to insert the screenshot at the cursor location.
Pressing Esc or clicking anywhere aborts the operation.

Using The Clip Tool From The Taskbar Icon

Right-click the OneNote icon in the notification area of the taskbar and click Create Screen Clipping.

As before, the screen turns translucent white and you can drag a rectangle with the mouse to create the screenshot.

Using The Shortcut

Pressing Windows Button + S is probably the fastest way to take an Office 2007 screenshot. Of course, you still have to use the mouse to drag and select the area.

Know Your Options

If you are a heavy ‘screen shooter’, working with just the taskbar icon is just the thing. If the taskbar icon is not visible, then a simple setting in Options corrects that. Go to Tools – Options – Other (under Category). Place a checkmark on Place OneNote icon in the notification area of the taskbar.
 

You can also change the way the screenshots are saved by right clicking on the Taskbar icon and selecting Options – Screen Clipping Defaults. The three choices are self explanatory. If you want to use OneNote as just a temporary screen capture utility you can select Copy to Clipboard Only which stops the automatic pasting into your notes. You can use CTRL+V to paste the screen in any application from the clipboard.