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PRINT SCREEN PLUS REVIEW IN "COMPUTERS & RADIOS COLUMN BY JOHN CATALANO

Simple Is Good

How many times would you have liked to print out a Window’s screen exactly as it was displayed on your monitor? Print Screen Plus does that and much more with just a touch of a key. As promised, no cables in sight, so let’s go.

Reviving the “Print Screen” Key

Take a good look at your PC keyboard and you will probably find a key that reads “Print Screen.” This key is a vestige from the days when DOS (Disk Operating System) ruled the earth and PCs. But the Print Screen key has not worked since the dawn of Windows.

Under DOS, the key was very useful and allowed the user to send what was on the monitor to a printer or save it as a file. You can imagine that report writers used the key quite a bit, including this writer. Under the Windows operating system it all ended.

The solution is just a click away. Just like the line from the movie Terminator says the power is back. A program called Print Screen Plus makes the key come alive once more for all Windows users including 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and NT. The small 828K program is downloaded with ease. Installation is very quick and is a one-click operation. For convenience, a shortcut icon is placed on the desktop. Once the program is started it opens an icon on the start tray at the lower right of the desktop screen.

Figure 1 shows the Print Screen Plus version 8.1.0 Option screen where you can set the keys for full screen, active window or a user specified capture area. It’s that simple and easy to use. You can print or store the image as a PDF file, or in an image file format such as jpg.

Want More?

If the user wants more control it’s theirs with just a few more clicks. This includes selection of saved image format and location, addition of time and date to image, image size, and many other parameters. As their website proclaims, “Save, Crop an image, Encrypt, Zoom and Email the Image with Print Screen Plus.”

But for those of us that just want to use the Print Screen key again, we can ignore all the extras. Print Screen Plus also includes a simple image viewer and more features for a special price of $19.95 at the time of writing; the regular price is $29.95. You can find out more and download a free 15-day evaluation version at their website www.callforpchelp.com.