Bloated SnagIt Screencapture Utility

Thu, Aug 7, 2008

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I hate it when I want to do something but have to wait for it. I know, I know, it just goes to show how impatient I am, but don’t we live in the age of instant gratification where everything must be done in the snap of your fingers.

Screen capturing is something that I (probably) do on a daily basis, so imagine my annoyance when something like screen capturing can’t be done in a quick, painless process. My basic requirements are simple: I want an area of my screen quickly captured and saved in a JPG format on my desktop so that I can do whatever I want with it.

With that requirements in mind, I downloaded SnagIt, tried it out, and after a few days realised that I cannot live with software as slow as it was. While it fulfilled my requirements perfectly, it went too far above and beyond, because with the SnagIt software came the ability to capture text, to capture a window or region, to save as a multitude of file-types, to browse your screen captures, etcetc. It was too much for me, though I could imagine how other people could benefit from these features.

Perhaps software should come in a few flavours. In my SnagIt example, the software in its entirety made me a dissatisifed user. If, however, it came in a “lite” version that did basic screencapturing quickly and easily, I would be sold.

Cropper screen capture freeware UI

In any case, I switched to a C# freeware called Cropper, which does what I want perfectly. That’s the screenshot of how it works: a simple and elegant solution that allows you to:

Takes over the default PrtScrn (Print Screen) key
Capture the region under the mouse
Capture the active window
Capture a selection

Awesome stuff. Download it free here:

http://www.codeplex.com/cropper

This post was written by:

Alvin - Alvin is a Singaporean who's interested in marketing, techy stuff and likes to just figure out how the two can work with each other. On top of his blog, you can also follow him on Twitter.

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