2. Matthew Ellison
Consultant and trainer for User Assistance
tools and technologies
Technical Director of annual
UA Europe conference
3.
4. What we’ll cover in this session
Recommendations on when and how to
use screenshots in user assistance
Potential pitfalls
The basic procedure for capturing screens
Image file formats
Tips for capturing screens successfully
How screen capture tools save work and
add value
Survey of popular screen capture tools
5. When/why should I use screenshots?
Identify the appearance and/or location of
a control
Show and explain the layout of a screen
Provide a visual instruction
Show the result of an action
Confirm that user has displayed the
correct dialog box or screen (in tutorials)
6. Show and explain the layout of a screen
Numbers clearly identify
main regions of the screen
7. Provide a visual instruction
Image provides same
instruction as text
10. Confirm that user has displayed correct dialog box
Screenshot confirms
success or shows what
dialog box looks like
(unnecessary for
onscreen Help)
11. When screenshots can cause problems…
Developers make late changes to the
screens
The screens need to be localized for many
different countries
Possible solutions:
Blur or obscure the text
Draw simplified version of screen
12. Example: Blurred text
Original screen
capture
Localized text is
selectively blurred –
other dialog elements
remain sharp
17. Capture a window
1. Press <ALT>+<Print Screen>
2. Paste the Clipboard contents into
an image editor
3. Optionally: resize the image (only
necessary for onscreen
presentation)
4. Optionally: reduce the color depth
to 256 colours
5. Save as a file
Demo
18. Capture a control or region
1. Press <ALT>+<Print Screen>
2. Paste the Clipboard contents into an
3.
4.
5.
image editor
Crop to the required region,
optionally applying edge effects
Optionally: Reduce the colour depth
to 256 colors
Save as a file
19. Capture a cascading menu
1. Press <Print Screen>
2. Paste the Clipboard contents into
3.
4.
5.
6.
an image editor
Crop to the cascading menu
Carefully remove the background
Reduce the colour depth to 256
colors
Save as a file
20. Resizing screenshots for on-screen presentation
Reasons to decrease the
dimensions of a screenshot
• Reduce screen space
• Avoid confusion with real screen
For best quality of resulting
image:
• Use millions of colours (24- or
32-bit) before resizing
• Use an anti-aliasing resize
method
25. Annotated screenshots
1. Capture to a lossless raster format
2. Add annotations and captions using a
3.
vector-based image editor
Store and edit combined image
in vector format
4. Use “Save As” to create raster format as
required
29. .tiff
Tagged Image Format
A container format that supports many
types of compression, layers, and different
colour modes including CMYK
Popular for printed publications
Non-Web-Safe
31. Screen resolution at capture time
You are capturing pixels
The number of pixels that make up a
screen element does not alter when you
change the screen resolution
32. Size of windows and dialogs at capture time
If possible, reduce the size of a window or
dialog as much as you can without:
• losing vital information
• making it unrecognizable to the user
34. Capture only as much of the screen as the user
needs to see
Always aim to minimize the dimensions of
the screen capture
Exclude screen clutter that will distract the
user from the main focus
35. What I look for in a screen capture tool:
Minimum requirements
Include the cursor
(or easily add it post-capture)
Capture windows, objects,
cascading menus, and rectangular
regions (with precision)
Automatically add border or edge
effects
Automatically use a specified file
format when saving file
Add editable callouts and other
objects on a separate layer
36. What I look for in a screen capture tool:
Nice to have
Re-capture a rectangular region
Save capture to a file without user
intervention
Capture individual buttons
Convert to a specified image resolution
automatically
Capture non-rectangular regions such as
ellipses and polygons
Capture scrolling windows
39. FullShot’s capture method
Capture buttons automatically added
to active window
Each button activates a different
capture type (Window, Region, etc.)
Hotkeys can be used as an alternative
41. FullShot summary
A popular tool with a good track record
FullShot Standard Edition automates the
screen capture process very successfully
Uses a different capture mechanism and
workflow from most of its competitors
Interface is fairly complex
Difficult to capture screen regions
precisely
42. FullShot summary
For:
• ease of capture
(using title bar buttons)
• wide range of capture shapes and effects
• minimizes file sizes by optimizing the colour
palette
Against:
• no magnified view of the pointer area for
precise selection of capture regions
• does not enable you to set the colour depth of
a captured image to a specific value
• no support for capturing buttons in the
Standard Edition
44. Jing summary
A simple and fun to use utility
It enables you quickly to capture and
share windows, objects, and regions of
your computer screen
It is available for both the Windows and
Mac OS
45. Jing summary
For:
• free
• support for sharing screen captures quickly
and easy through a hosted website
• ease of access and use
• support for simple video capture
Against:
• basic
• no edge effects available
• no vector based annotations
47. MadCap Capture summary
A very interesting and innovative screen
capture tool
Focuses on streamlining the screen
capture workflow rather than necessarily
competing on feature-count
A compelling choice for users of MadCap
Flare
48. MadCap Capture summary
For:
Against:
• integration with MadCap Flare, and support for
"single-sourcing" screen- and print-oriented image
formats
• ability to reproduce the position and dimensions
of previous region captures
• powerful and multi-layered vector-based image
editor
• reliance on Flare to exploit certain features fully
• steeper learning curve than some of the other
tools
• edge effects (such as torn edge) perhaps not quite
as well implemented as some of the other tools
51. RoboScreenCapture summary
A well-designed package that enables easy
and very precise capture of regions,
buttons, and other screen elements
Bundled with Adobe RoboHelp versions 7,
8, 9, 10 and has been well integrated with
these products
Not available for purchase as a standalone
product
A little out-dated
52. RoboScreenCapture summary
For:
• wide range of capture options including
capture of individual buttons and repeat last
capture
• high level of control over color depth,
resolution, and compression
• precise selection of capture region using
arrow keys
Against:
• no support for special edge effects
• can’t save capture settings as named profiles
• no support for true freehand region
53. SnagIt
Each profile
contains a specific
combination of
settings
Logical
organization
of controls
Easy-to-use
Wizard for
creating new
profiles
55. SnagIt summary
A full-featured package with a logical
workflow that is likely to address the
needs of even the most demanding of
user assistance developers
56. SnagIt summary
For:
• exceptionally well-designed interface and
workflow
• comprehensive options for capturing,
standardizing, and adding effects to images
• bundled tools include powerful vector-based
image editor and file management utility
• flexible All-in-One capture profile
(similar to Jing)
Against:
• may offer more features than required by
some user assistance specialists
• rather lame capture sound effect
57. Gift for TCUK 2013 attendees
Free download of all slides from
UA Europe 2013 in Manchester
Go to:
uaconference.eu/TCUK
…and enter your contact details to receive
username and password