Windows 10 Creators Update, included what one of my colleagues called ‘a moment of zen at Microsoft’ — you can capture a specific region of your screen to the clipboard using the Win + Shift + S shortcut key. Having used it for a while I tend to agree with him. They call it “snip and sketch.”
To demonstrate how this baby works, I have selected a photograph from my Google Photos album and I want my photoshop expert to change a few things on it. So first I used the ‘snip and sketch ‘ tool (Win-Shift-s) to grab the photo quickly.
In my notifications bar on the right of my screen, I can see the image has been saved to a universal clipboard. From here you can paste it in almost ANYWHERE with a cursor and a Ctrl_V. I haven’t found anywhere yet where it will not paste effectively.
Alternatively, if you want to edit it quickly just double click the notification and Windows will launch it in a basic editor application.
then use the shortcut AGAIN to copy the image and paste it into an email or blog (as I have done).
The beauty is, is that at no stage have I had to save or name or find the image. For me, that is a massive saving of time and effort.
The other part of my working day is within Excel, and here again, the shortcut can be hugely beneficial.
The client has a problem with a particular value in their pivot table.
It’s an easy enough solution, the point is, that that single image so easily executed using snip and stretch then demonstrates so well the problem, and this can now be shared on Whatsapp, email, skype… Sure you can use a screen share but so often an email or an SMS message suits you both fine.
As a company director, communication is obviously key, and to do this, I must use the broadest range of communication channels possible. This feature of windows helps us to help our customers, to help us, to help them.
I hope that you find this shortcut as useful as I have.
