Download of the Day: Snagit

I’ve been a Snagit user for years. It’s an industry-wide standard for taking screen shots on Windows computers—essential if you’re a technical writer. I hadn’t kept up much with the updates as my old, reliable and out-of-date copy was doing everything I needed. This week, I decided to see what the latest version had to offer. After downloading version 7.2 from the TechSmith website, I gave it a spin.

The first thing that struck me was the new interface—beautifully designed, it now lets you select from pre-built capture profiles such as capturing a window and saving it to a file or snagging an on-screen region and copying it to the clipboard. Best of all, Snagit now lets you capture the entire contents of a scrolling window. You can snap a picture that includes not only the onscreen portion, but the parts that have scrolled offscreen as well. I also loved the included Snagit Studio editor that lets you annotate your captures with a good collection of arrows, shapes, labels and so forth. The studio is clearly still developing and I hope they’ll expand the library of shapes over time.

At $39.95, Snagit will definitely put a dent in your pocketbook, but if this is the tool you need to get the job done then it’s well worth the price. For those who want to give it a try before they buy, there’s a free 30-day trial. Recommended.

Snagit

Die Dulci Fruere