The built in snipping tool in Windows 10 is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. However, for many users, myself included, it just doesn’t do enough. There are alternatives like Tech Smith’s “Snagit”, but Snagit comes at a cost.

I recently stumbled upon Snipaste in the Windows Store and was pleasantly surprised by how powerful this screenshot tool was, and even better, it is free!

By taking advantage of the Function keys, Snipaste has the ability to perform various different functions, and it does them very, very quickly! 

Pressing F1 opens up the capture window which allows users to change the capture shape, insert arrows or other pointers, add markings via pencil or highlight and text. There are three additional options as well, which are copy to clipboard, save, and possibly the most useful one for me so far is pin to screen page.

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This “pin to” page function is incredibly helpful in cases where you are trying to transpose a snippet of information but do not want to open it in a new window or save the file and open it as an image. It is very, very helpful. I have been using it when working in Excel to grab a formula format from one place and pin it above the sheet I am working on to complete the formula.

Settings are fairly robust as well, allowing users to set various hotkeys, which can speed up the process for times where you want to snip and copy directly to the clipboard, as one example.

Delayed snip is another useful feature for cases where you need to access a sub-menu or share a flyout menu before starting your capture.

 

 

There are also a series of mouse gestures users can enable to further the functionality of this application.

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Snipaste runs in the system tray and captures can also be initiated with a single-click of the Snipaste logo if you wish to forgo the hotkey assignments. To access the preferences to adjust the app’s behavior, right-clicking the icon from the tray will reveal that menu.

 

 

 

There are many other powerful features available within Snipaste, and as I mentioned earlier this app is free from the Microsoft Store, so it is absolutely worth a try if you take a lot of screenshots on your PC.