In my article Screen-Printing From Your Computer Screen (originally published in my October 17, 2005 newsletter), I wrote about the PrntScrn button. I received a followup question from a reader, who had a puzzling problem:
Dear Terry,
I just read your article on using the Print Screen button. I am using Windows XP. When I followed your instructions–using the print screen instructions in the newsletter–the page came up in Word but it was very tiny and included my desktop picture, also tiny. How can I avoid my desktop picture and have my screen come up in its normal size? I feel rather stupid asking this but being able to print screen would be very useful for me.Lois [last name removed]
This one is a tricky question. There are three basic issues here, and there is (probably) a simple answer to each
First, pictures and other images in Microsoft Word are stretchable. All you have to do to increase or decrease the size of an image is to grab a corner and stretch it.
Second, why is the pasted image so tiny? I suspect that it is one of the Word settings.
Just in case, here are the Tools/Options/Edit option settings I use in Microsoft Word 2003. Note also that there are “cut and paste” options. These are in the smaller image.
To copy only the active window, and not the whole screen, hold down the Alt button while pressing the PrntScrn key.
I find that screenprinting the active window is usually what I want to do. Perhaps that’s because my standard resolution is 1680×1050, so I very, very seldomly have an application open in full-screen mode.
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