How can I save a screenshot directly to a file in Windows? [closed]

Answer 1

Little known fact: in most standard Windows (XP) dialogs, you can hit Ctrl+C to have a textual copy of the content of the dialog.
Example: open a file in Notepad, hit space, close the window, hit Ctrl+C on the Confirm Exit dialog, cancel, paste in Notepad the text of the dialog.
Unrelated to your direct question, but I though it would be nice to mention in this thread.

Beside, indeed, you need a third party software to do the screenshot, but you don't need to fire the big Photoshop for that. Something free and lightweight like IrfanWiew or XnView can do the job. I use MWSnap to copy arbitrary parts of the screen. I wrote a little AutoHotkey script calling GDI+ functions to do screenshots. Etc.

Answer 2

You need a 3rd party screen grab utility for that functionality in XP. I dig Scott Hanselman's extensive blogging about cool tools and usually look there for such a utility -- sure enough, he's blogged about a couple here.

Answer 3

Keep Picasa running in the background, and simply click "Print Screen" key

Source

Answer 4

This will do it in Delphi. Note the use of the BitBlt function, which is a Windows API call, not something specific to Delphi.

Edit: Added example usage

function TForm1.GetScreenShot(OnlyActiveWindow: boolean) : TBitmap;
var
  w,h : integer;
  DC : HDC;
  hWin : Cardinal;
  r : TRect;
begin
  //take a screenshot and return it as a TBitmap.
  //if they specify "OnlyActiveWindow", then restrict the screenshot to the
  //currently focused window (same as alt-prtscrn)
  //Otherwise, get a normal screenshot (same as prtscrn)
  Result := TBitmap.Create;
  if OnlyActiveWindow then begin
    hWin := GetForegroundWindow;
    dc := GetWindowDC(hWin);
    GetWindowRect(hWin,r);
    w := r.Right - r.Left;
    h := r.Bottom - r.Top;
  end  //if active window only
  else begin
    hWin := GetDesktopWindow;
    dc := GetDC(hWin);
    w := GetDeviceCaps(DC,HORZRES);
    h := GetDeviceCaps(DC,VERTRES);
  end;  //else entire desktop

  try
    Result.Width := w;
    Result.Height := h;
    BitBlt(Result.Canvas.Handle,0,0,Result.Width,Result.Height,DC,0,0,SRCCOPY);
  finally
    ReleaseDC(hWin, DC) ;
  end;  //try-finally
end;

procedure TForm1.btnSaveScreenshotClick(Sender: TObject);
var
  bmp : TBitmap;
  savdlg : TSaveDialog;
begin
  //take a screenshot, prompt for where to save it
  savdlg := TSaveDialog.Create(Self);
  bmp := GetScreenshot(False);
  try
    if savdlg.Execute then begin
      bmp.SaveToFile(savdlg.FileName);
    end;
  finally
    FreeAndNil(bmp);
    FreeAndNil(savdlg);
  end;  //try-finally
end;

Answer 5

Without installing a screenshot autosave utility, yes you do. There are several utilities you can find however folr doing this.

For example: http://www.screenshot-utility.com/

Answer 6

You can code something pretty simple that will hook the PrintScreen and save the capture in a file.

Here is something to start to capture and save to a file. You will just need to hook the key "Print screen".

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.IO;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public class CaptureScreen
{

    static public void Main(string[] args)
    {

        try
        {
            Bitmap capture = CaptureScreen.GetDesktopImage();
            string file = Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "screen.gif");
            ImageFormat format = ImageFormat.Gif;
            capture.Save(file, format);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e);
        }

    }

    public static Bitmap GetDesktopImage()
    {
        WIN32_API.SIZE size;

        IntPtr  hDC = WIN32_API.GetDC(WIN32_API.GetDesktopWindow()); 
        IntPtr hMemDC = WIN32_API.CreateCompatibleDC(hDC);

        size.cx = WIN32_API.GetSystemMetrics(WIN32_API.SM_CXSCREEN);
        size.cy = WIN32_API.GetSystemMetrics(WIN32_API.SM_CYSCREEN);

        m_HBitmap = WIN32_API.CreateCompatibleBitmap(hDC, size.cx, size.cy);

        if (m_HBitmap!=IntPtr.Zero)
        {
            IntPtr hOld = (IntPtr) WIN32_API.SelectObject(hMemDC, m_HBitmap);
            WIN32_API.BitBlt(hMemDC, 0, 0,size.cx,size.cy, hDC, 0, 0, WIN32_API.SRCCOPY);
            WIN32_API.SelectObject(hMemDC, hOld);
            WIN32_API.DeleteDC(hMemDC);
            WIN32_API.ReleaseDC(WIN32_API.GetDesktopWindow(), hDC);
            return System.Drawing.Image.FromHbitmap(m_HBitmap); 
        }
        return null;
    }

    protected static IntPtr m_HBitmap;
}

public class WIN32_API
{
    public struct SIZE
    {
        public int cx;
        public int cy;
    }
    public  const int SRCCOPY = 13369376;
    public  const int SM_CXSCREEN=0;
    public  const int SM_CYSCREEN=1;

    [DllImport("gdi32.dll",EntryPoint="DeleteDC")]
    public static extern IntPtr DeleteDC(IntPtr hDc);

    [DllImport("gdi32.dll",EntryPoint="DeleteObject")]
    public static extern IntPtr DeleteObject(IntPtr hDc);

    [DllImport("gdi32.dll",EntryPoint="BitBlt")]
    public static extern bool BitBlt(IntPtr hdcDest,int xDest,int yDest,int wDest,int hDest,IntPtr hdcSource,int xSrc,int ySrc,int RasterOp);

    [DllImport ("gdi32.dll",EntryPoint="CreateCompatibleBitmap")]
    public static extern IntPtr CreateCompatibleBitmap(IntPtr hdc,  int nWidth, int nHeight);

    [DllImport ("gdi32.dll",EntryPoint="CreateCompatibleDC")]
    public static extern IntPtr CreateCompatibleDC(IntPtr hdc);

    [DllImport ("gdi32.dll",EntryPoint="SelectObject")]
    public static extern IntPtr SelectObject(IntPtr hdc,IntPtr bmp);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint="GetDesktopWindow")]
    public static extern IntPtr GetDesktopWindow();

    [DllImport("user32.dll",EntryPoint="GetDC")]
    public static extern IntPtr GetDC(IntPtr ptr);

    [DllImport("user32.dll",EntryPoint="GetSystemMetrics")]
    public static extern int GetSystemMetrics(int abc);

    [DllImport("user32.dll",EntryPoint="GetWindowDC")]
    public static extern IntPtr GetWindowDC(Int32 ptr);

    [DllImport("user32.dll",EntryPoint="ReleaseDC")]
    public static extern IntPtr ReleaseDC(IntPtr hWnd,IntPtr hDc);
}

Update Here is the code to hook the PrintScreen (and other key) from C#:

Hook code