![]() ![]() The problem is that it will be a low-resolution image (72 or 96 dpi, depending on your screen resolution). Your screenshot will appear in the editor, ready to be saved to a graphic file. Press the appropriate key combination (Print Screen in SnagIt) and then click on the dialog box. Set SnagIt to capture a whole window (not a region) and then display the dialog box. If you own SnagIt or other screen capture software, then taking a snapshot of a dialog box is easy enough. Screenshots of Dialog Boxes and Other Elements You will almost certainly want to use Photoshop’s Trim command to get rid of extra white space around the image, and you will probably want to tweak other things. That way you only print the part that you need, which saves some editing.Įither way, the result is a file that can be opened in Photoshop for manipulation. Also, in Excel, you probably want to make sure that you choose to print the selection, rather than the entire worksheet. This setting is available in the Page Setup dialog box on the Page tab. Important: The resolution of your software printer driver isn’t all that counts, make sure that you set Excel to print at 600 dpi. For print I would suggest at least 300 dpi, though I use 600 dpi. ![]() Before printing to the software driver, make sure that you go into its advanced options to set the resolution. The advantage of using SnagIt’s printer is that it will save directly to any number of graphics formats (e.g., tif, psd, or many others). I’m not sure that is worth it, but it might be. One advantage that the PDF printer has over SnagIt’s is that you can set the resolution higher than 600 dpi. That is easily fixed, if necessary, by copying the layer and adding a white background. The PDF printer ( Google search for alternatives) is an excellent choice, but the image has a transparent background when the PDF is imported into Photoshop. The Microsoft solution seems to be limited to 300 dpi and doesn’t handle shading very well so I don’t recommend it. You can print to a PDF printer or use the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer that comes with Office and should be installed as a printer on your PC. I use the SnagIt printer driver that is included when you purchase that wonderful screenshot software. ![]() All that you need is a software printer driver. It is pretty simple to get high quality digital prints of spreadsheet contents. However, they are visible in a high quality PDF file. In fact, for desktop laser printing these techniques may not make a huge difference. For web images, a normal 72 dpi or 96 dpi image is sufficient since that is all anybody will see on their monitors anyway. Also, the techniques that I will share are meant for high quality printing (books and so on). Note that the CS4 versions of the Adobe applications are now available, but I see no need to upgrade for my purposes and I’m sure that older versions will work just fine. CorelDraw X3 – for working with vector images (optional, you could also use Adobe Illustrator).Adobe Flash CS3 – For converting bitmap images into vector graphics (optional).Adobe Photoshop CS3 – For manipulating the images.SnagIt from TechSmith – For screenshots and the printer driver.You can use alternatives (many are free), but these are what I use: Good tools are necessary for professional work, and they tend to make the job easier. At the end of the post is a link to a PDF file that can be downloaded to see the results in a high quality version. If you have better ideas, I’d love to hear about them in the comments. I’ll share the steps that I’m using in this post. I got the instructions from the graphicPUSH blog, and I did some experimenting of my own. I’m no artist, so I didn’t figure this out on my own. This is something that I’ve been trying to get to work for a long time, but I had to rely on the artists at my publisher to spruce up screenshots in the past. I have finally figured out how to create high quality screenshots of various Excel dialog boxes and other components. I’m knee-deep into work on the 5th edition of Financial Analysis with Microsoft Excel, but I feel the need to make this post while I’m thinking about this stuff. ![]()
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