SnagIt DRAFT COPY TechSmith Corporation 1745 Hamilton Road Suite 300 Okemos Michigan 48864 SnagIt Overview SnagIt is the print utility that Microsoft Windows forgot. SnagIt is a screen print and capture program for Windows. With SnagIt, you can: o Capture screens, windows, and icons and send them to your printer, the clipboard, or a write them out to a file. o Cut and paste captured images into word processors or desktop publishing programs. o Perform color enhancement, color to monochrome conversion or gray scaling Potential users: o Developers will want to use SnagIt to print program screens, and windows. o Documentation writers can use SnagIt to import screens and windows into manuals, marketing literature, and other documents. o Advanced users can use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) to control SnagIt's printing functions from other Windows applications. 1 (c) Copyright 1991, TechSmith Corporation Inc.. All Rights Reserved. 2 TechSmith Corporation Overview The TechSmith Corporation is a computer consulting and software development company located in Okemos, Michigan. We provide a full range of services to organizations assessing or implementing Windows or OS/2 applications for use in distributed systems. We concentrate our services on those areas that are most likely to complement the capabilities within our customer's organizations. We offer assistance during the assessment and design and development phases. We offer an extensive background in the successful implementation of distributed applications on Windows and OS/2 platforms. Our experience includes projects using all major network topologies, protocols, LAN operating systems, and many LAN-based commercial products. 3 Table of Contents Introduction .....................4 Installation .....................5 Getting Started ..................6 Feature Reference Mouse Controls.................9 Input..........................9 Output........................11 Format........................12 Options.......................13 Save Setup....................14 Advanced Topics Monochrome Conversion.........15 Color Boost...................16 Gray Scaling..................16 DDE Usage.....................16 Appendix A DDE Command Reference.........17 Appendix B Other Products................19 4 Introduction This manual is divided into three sections. The first section contains: o Installation instructions. o Getting Started, directions on how to create basic screen prints with SnagIt. The second section, Feature Reference, contains: o Snagit menus o Explanations each of the options and its use. The third section, Advanced Topics, contains: o Discussions on how to use the advanced features of SnagIt such as, color boost, and gray scaling and using Dynamic Data Exchange. o Dynamic Data Exchange features. This document was created using SnagIt and Microsoft Word for Windows 5 Installation o System Requirements: Microsoft Windows 3.0 . printer that supports Bitmaps such as an HP Laserjet or a Postscript Printer o Installation Steps 1. Copy the file SNAGIT.EXE to your windows directory. Example: COPY A:SNAGIT.EXE C:\WINDOWS 2. Start Windows. 3. Select the Accessories Group. 4. Create a new program item for SnagIt with the Program Manager. (Consult your Windows Users Manual if you need help with this operation.) o To load SnagIt automatically each time you start Windows: 1. dit your WIN.INI file in the windows directory 2. dd SNAGIT to the load line. Example: Load=CLOCK, SNAGIT 6 This will load the Clock and SnagIt as icons. 7 Getting Started Printing a Screen In this section you will: o Learn how to use some of the basic features of SnagIt o Create your first screen print Loading SnagIt 1. Start Windows. 2. If you configured your WIN.INI to load SnagIt automatically, you will see the SnagIt icon displayed at the bottom of your screen. 3. If SnagIt has not been automatically loaded, activate SnagIt by double clicking on the SnagIt icon in the Accessories Group. Selecting the Print Area SnagIt can print the entire screen, a selected region of the screen or a single window. Select the print option, by first double clicking on the SnagIt icon to restore SnagIt to a window. 8 SnagIt Restored to a Window The SnagIt window will display the current settings. Click on the Input menu item to view the list of options. Select one of the following options: Screen: Prints the entire screen. Entire Prints a single window. Window: Client Area: Prints only the window client area. Region: Allows you to select a rectangular region anywhere on the screen. If you selected Entire Window, Window Client Area or Region from the Input menu, SnagIt will ask you to pick a window or region when you print. Printing 9 To print press [Ctrl][Shift]P. Your mouse pointer will change to a pointing finger for selecting a window or to scissors for selecting a region. If you selected Entire Window or Window Client Area as the input area, position the pointer on the title bar of the window you wish to print and press the left mouse button. If you selected Region as the input area position the pointer at the upper left corner of the region you wish to print. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the pointer to the lower right corner of the region and release the mouse button. You can cancel the selection process by clicking the right mouse button. While SnagIt is printing the following message box will be displayed. To cancel the printing operation, click on the Cancel button in the message box. The portion of the image already sent to the printer will print. 10 Feature Reference Mouse Controls Left Button - The left mouse button is used to select SnagIt menu options and to select screen images. Right Button - The right mouse button is used to cancel a selection operation. Keyboard Controls [Ctrl][Shift]P - Activates SnagIt Input SnagIt Input Menu The Input menu is used to select the image type that SnagIt will print. The currently selected option is marked by a check mark. The different input options work as follows: 11 Screen - Select Screen to print the entire screen. Window Client Area - Select this option to print only the client area of a single window. The client area is the area surrounded by the window borders. The client area does not include the borders, title bar, scroll bars or the caption line. After you press [Ctrl][Shift]P, select the client area you want to print by positioning pointer anywhere in the client area then clicking the left mouse button. Entire Window - Select this option to print an entire window. After you press [Ctrl][Shift]P, select the window to print by positioning the pointer over the title bar then clicking the left mouse button. Note: Always select the window you want to print by clicking on the title bar. Items within a window, such as OK and Cancel buttons, are actually small windows. Icons are considered windows as well. Clicking on one of these items will result in that item printing, not the entire window. Region - Select this option to print a rectangular region of the screen. 12 After pressing [Ctrl][Shift]P, select a region by positioning the pointer over the upper left corner of the region. Press and hold the left mouse button. Then drag the pointer to the lower right hand corner of the region and release the mouse button. Bitmap File - Select this option to print an image stored in a bitmap file. When you press [Ctrl][Shift]P, SnagIt will display a dialog box requesting the file name. Bitmap files are graphics files generated by some paint programs, SnagIt or other Windows programs. Bitmap files have a file extension of .BMP. Clipboard - Select the clipboard option to print the contents of the Windows clipboard. Items are placed on the clipboard by using SnagIt or the cut and copy commands in other Windows programs. 13 Output SnagIt Output Menu The Output menu is used to select the output device for the images captured by SnagIt. SnagIt supports the following output devices: Printer - Select Printer to send the output to the currently selected Windows printer. Bitmap File - Select BMP File to write the captured image to a BMP file. After you select an input image SnagIt displays a dialog box asking for a file name. TIFF File - Select TIF Mono File to write the captured image to a TIFF file. After you select an input image SnagIt displays a dialog box asking for a file name. Clipboard - Select Clipboard to send the input image to the Windows Clipboard. 14 Format SnagIt Format Menu SnagIt supports three different format options: Mono-chrome, Color, and Gray Scale. Select the format option with the Format Menu. The currently selected option is identified by a check mark. The format options work as follows: Monochrome - The input image is converted to monochrome before it is sent to the output device. The intensity threshold level determines the amount of black and white that will appear in the output image. When you select Monochrome, the following dialog box is displayed for setting the Intensity Threshold. 15 Intensity Threshold Dialog Box Color - All color information for the selected image is sent to the output device. Gray Scale - When Gray Scale is selected, colors are represented by up to 256 shades of gray. Note: Gray scaling large images may take a while to complete. See the Advanced Topics Section for further discussion on formatting options. Options 16 SnagIt Options Menu Alert - Set the alert options to have SnagIt signal you with a beep(s) when it has completed processing. There is an alert option for both input and output processing. The values entered for these fields determine the number of beeps. This feature is particularly useful when using the gray scale option. Clipboard Chain - Clipboard Chain - Setting the clipboard chain option causes SnagIt to print each time the clipboard changes. Clipboard chaining is useful for doing a print screen from a DOS session. When you press the Print Scrn key in a DOS box, Windows copies the screen to the clipboard. If you have the clipboard chain option set, SnagIt automatically copies the image to the printer for you. Note: To select Clipboard Chain, the input device must be set to Clipboard, and output device must be set to Printer. 17 Color Boost - Color boost is used to adjust the color intensities for Red, Green, and Blue. When Color Boost is selected, a dialog box is displayed for color boost values. Color Boost Dialog Box You may control the intensity for each pixel two ways: 1. Add or subtract intensity levels (hue) for each color range by entering a value from -255 to 255. 2. Increase or decrease intensity levels by a percentage (saturation) by using the slider bar. The default value for each additive range is zero and the percentage bar is 100%. 18 To activate color boost, click on the "Use Color Boost" check box. Color boosting, if enabled, is applied to the input image before it is sent to the output device. For further discussion on the use of color boost, see the Advanced Topics Section. Scale - This option allows you to enter an integer scaling factor to be applied to the input image. A scaling factor of 2 will double the size of the input image. Save Setup SnagIt can save all of the currently selected options. The Save Setup option is located under the system menu. The system menu is accessed by pressing Alt Space or by clicking on the minus sign in the upper left corner of the SnagIt window. When you save the setup, SnagIt writes all of the current settings to your WIN.INI file. SnagIt will read the saved setup each time it is loaded 19 Advanced Topics Monochrome Conversion When Windows converts a color image to monochrome, it converts the background color to white. All other colors are converted to black. This usually results in a most of the image getting converted to black. SnagIt uses an intensity threshold to control the level of black and white resulting from the conversion process. SnagIt looks at the intensity level of each pixel and converts higher intensities (lighter colors) to white and lower intensities (darker colors) to black. This conversion process usually results in a more even balance of black and white in the output image. The amounts of black and white are controlled by adjusting the Intensity Threshold value under the Monochrome setting of the Format Menu. You may also use the color boost values to adjust color intensities before conversion to monochrome. You will get different results converting images to monochrome if you use the Windows Setup program to configure Windows for a monochrome monitor. You may need your Windows diskettes the first time you do this. When configured for a monochrome monitor, Windows creates grays as patterns of black and white dots (dithering), which will print on a 20 monochrome device such as a laser printer. 21 Color Boost Color boost is used to change the intensity of the colors. Increasing the boost value lightens the output. Color boost is performed before gray scaling or monochrome conversion, therefore it can be used to lighten or darken the output with those options as well. Gray Scaling Gray scaling is an alternative to monochrome conversion. SnagIt can represent colors with 256 levels of gray. The shades of gray are determined by the intensity level of the colors. You can adjust the color intensity levels with the Color Boost option under the Options Menu. Caution: Gray scaling is a pixel by pixel process and can be very slow. It is a good idea to try a small region before printing the whole screen. You may also want to enable the Alert feature under the Options Menu to let you know when the gray scaling process is completed. Dynamic Data Exchange Usage SnagIt supports Windows Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). You can invoke SnagIt from other Windows programs by sending SnagIt DDE Messages. For Example, you can print write an Excel macro that will print a portion of the screen using SnagIt. See Appendix A for the DDE command reference. 22 Appendix A - Dynamic Data Exchange Reference Initiating a DDE Session To initiate a DDE session with SnagIt, send a DDE_INITIATE with the application parameter of "SnagIt" and the topic parameter of "system". Setting SnagIt Options All of the SnagIt Menu options can be set using the DDE_EXECUTE command. Example [set ("string")] The parameter string must be one of the following: input screen input client input window input region input file input clipboard scale best scale screen scale n (where n is an integer > 0) output printer output file output clipboard chain b (where b is 1,True,Yes,0,False, or No) 23 boost red,green,blue (integer value 0..1000) add red, green, blue (integer value -255..255) inalert n (where n is the number of beeps) outalert n Activating SnagIt SnagIt is activated by sending a DDE_EXECUTE command with the message: [snag("string")] The string parameter can be one of the following: snag (activates menus selected input) screen clipboard filename x y (where x,y are coordinates within a window) client x y handle h (where h is a valid window handle) client handle h tx ty bx by (where tx,ty,bx,by are coordinates defining a region) 24 Appendix B - Other TechSmith Products Other Software Available from TechSmith. DDEWatch DDEWatch is a Windows DDE monitoring utility. Each message that DDEWatch displays consists of decoded bit fields, command/data strings and atom names DDE also supports file logging, allowing DDE conversations to be captured and written to a file. DDELib DDELib offers Windows programmers an API that significantly reduces the effort required to write fully functional DDE compliant applications. Client and server demonstration programs are included. Table Update Table update is an end-user Windows front end for the Microsoft SQL Server and Gupta's SQLBase. It facilitates data entry into a set of hierarchically related tables. Table update is dynamically driven by the database schema, including primary and foreign keys, so no programming is involved. Table update features a Basic style macro language, ad-hoc table queries, Dynamic Data Exchange, Multiple Document Interface and on-line help facilitie 2 The print utility that Windows forgot! Use SnagIt to print screens, windows, and icons from any Microsoft Windows applicatio 2 2 Use SnagIt to capture a window and import it into your favorite Windows word processor or desktop publishing progra TechSmith Corporation 1745 Hamilton Road Suite 300 Okemos, MI 48864 (517) 347-08 28