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If you need to create screen captures frequently, the little investment into a specialized screen capture tool will soon pay off. A professional screen capture tool allows you to "shoot", save and edit the images quickly and efficiently. Effects often needed for technical documentation, such as drop shadow or torn edges, copping of menus, callouts, etc., can be added with a click of the mouse. With a universal graphics software this would be much more cumbersome.
However, not all the functions offered by many screen capture tools are equally relevant for technical documentation purposes. The following checklist aims to help you decide which tool is best suited for your specific needs.
Tip:
You can find a list of recommendable tools under Screen Capture Tools.
Range of image capturing
| ▪ | Can you capture selective areas such as the whole desktop, individual windows, menus, buttons, etc.? |
| ▪ | Can you also select any area manually? Is it possible to select it up to the pixel level? Can you create several images with uniform dimensions? |
| ▪ | Are captured windows with rounded edges reproduced correctly or do parts of the background remain visible? |
| ▪ | Is it possible to capture menus, multi-level menus and context menus? Are the menus in the images automatically cropped? |
| ▪ | Can you decide whether or not to show the mouse cursor? |
Screen capturing process
| ▪ | Can you set the desired resolution (dpi)? |
| ▪ | Can you set the number of colors? |
| ▪ | Can you modify the shortcut keys, so that you can even create a screen capture if another program is using the default shortcut key already? Can you also create screen captures via the menu of the capture tool without having to remember a shortcut key? |
| ▪ | Can you also make screen captures with a time delay so that you have ample time, if necessary, to set the recorded application to a particular state? |
| ▪ | Is there an auto scroll function which allows you to record the contents that goes beyond the visible screen area? |
| ▪ | Can you combine several isolated interface elements like overlapping windows into one single image? Or is it necessary to remove the background manually in that case? |
| ▪ | Can you efficiently create a large number of images and save them efficiently, using automatically generated file names? |
| ▪ | Can you apply effects and settings automatically without having to edit each image manually? |
| ▪ | Can you save the settings used for a certain sequence of actions as a profile? |
| ▪ | Is is possible to integrate the screen capture tool with your authoring tool? |
Post-processing
| ▪ | Can you rename several files automatically and convert them into another format through batch conversion? |
| ▪ | Can you directly send the created images to another graphics application like Photoshop, for example, in order to further edit the images? (This is only required if post-editing with the screen capture tool crosses its limitations.) |
| ▪ | Does the application have browsing capability to quickly search for previously created screen captures? |
| ▪ | Can you perform basic editing actions on the images created? |
| ▪ | What are the useful effects offered by the software, especially for illustrations in technical documentation? |
| ▪ | cutout images with fading edges |
| ▪ | semi-transparent highlighting |
| ▪ | magnification of partial areas |
| ▪ | blur out of irrelevant areas |
| ▪ | callouts, arrows, lines, comments |
| ▪ | How is the overall visual impression of the output? |
Later modification of images
| ▪ | Can the text of added callouts still be edited after saving the image? This is especially important when you want to update or translate a text. Or do you have to create a fresh screen capture and repeat the actions all over again, only because you found a typo? |
| ▪ | Can you update the screen captures in a way so so that manually inserted effects, elements and comments are retained? This is especially important when the GUI of the software has changed, but your comments, arrows, callouts, etc. are still valid. |
Handling of the application
| ▪ | How good is the documentation? |
| ▪ | How long does it take to learn how to use the tool? |
| ▪ | How simple and efficient is its operation? |
Additional functions
In most cases, additional functions like sending the image through email, uploading through FTP, photo effects such as "oil painting" and other gimmicks are truly secondary.
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