Capture Portions of the Screen with MWSnap

By Josh | February 2, 2008

I have been looking for some software that would capture only a portion of the screen when I need to take a screenshot. I hate having to cut out what I need from a picture everytime. Taking a screenshot and then cutting out that part that you need takes a while compared to the time it would take to just select the part of the screen that you want. Thanks to MWSnap, this process is much easier.

MWSnap has the option to capture a free rectangular part of the screen. All you need to do is select the Any Rectangular Area option, and it will allow you to draw a rectangle around what you want to capture. You can then save the picture as a bmp, jpg, tiff, png, or a gif. You could also capture the whole desktop if you needed to, or a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed rectangular portion of the screen.

One nice feature is that it can be easily minimized to the system tray so that you can quickly access it later. Right clicking on the icon in the system tray gives you access to the different options available. You can then take quick screenshots without having to open the window. There is also a tool to magnify an area of the screen, which would be great for people who have a hard time seeing small text, and a ruler tool to measure lengths of an object on the screen.

This software is a little old (latest version from 2002), but it still works for me on Vista. Maybe there is some other newer software out there that will do the same stuff, but this is working fine for me. If you know of something better, let me know in the comments.