How to Capture a Scrolling Screenshot in Windows 10

Windows 10 offers many ways to capture a screenshot. To take a screenshot, all you need to do is press Ctrl + PRTSC or Fn + PRTSC and you instantly have a screenshot. There is even a built-in Snipping Tool that allows you to capture a section of a window as well as pop-up menus.

But all those methods only allow you to capture content that is within the dimensions of the browser’s viewing area. What if you want to capture a screenshot of a scrolling window of a webpage, document, or any other content that’s beyond the viewable area? In such cases your only option would be to use a third-party application.

In this post you’ll learn the best tools to capture a scrolling screenshot in Windows.

1. ShareX

Available to buy on its own website as well as the Steam gaming platform (where it has “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews, as well as having its own well-populated Discord channel, the free screen capture app ShareX is validated by its broad popularity in the discerning game-streaming community.

The open-source app is widely used by gamers for its robust screen-capture options. Among those features – which include video capture, GIFs, region-select, workflows, as well as a huge number of filters and effects to add to your captures – is the “scrolling screenshot” option you’re looking for here.

Just open ShareX, click Capture then “Scrolling capture”. Once you select your region, you can specify which window you want to scroll, whether you want there to be a delay before the screen-capture starts, and how many scrolls you want to capture.

It’s nice and easy to use, and unlike other options on this list it’s free without caveats, maintained as it is by a diligent community of open-source developers. Beyond just scrolling, it also functions as an all-in-one screen capture suite, which is pretty impressive given its small file size.

2. PicPick

PicPick is a robust screen-capture and image-editing software developed and owned by NGWIN. It’s my personal favorite screen capture tool, and I use it all the time. The best thing about PicPick is that it’s free for personal use and packs some cool features you won’t find even in the paid programs.

As far as screen capture is concerned, PicPick offers seven screen capture modes: Full screen, Active Window, Window Control, Scrolling Window, Region, Fixed Region, and FreeHand. Each of these modes suits different scenarios and can help you customize your screenshots to your liking. For example, the Region mode can help you to isolate and capture a dialogue box without background noise.

Fixed Region mode allows you to set your desired screenshot length and width in terms of pixel count which helps to ensure all your screenshots are uniform. It also has a Scrolling Window mode that lets you capture a scrolling screenshot of a webpage or a document in just a few clicks.

To capture a scrolling window, follow the steps below:

1. Press and hold Ctrl + Alt together, then press PRTSC . A rectangular box highlighted in red will appear.

2. Press and hold the left mouse button, then drag the mouse on the scrolling window to select the area.

3. Release the mouse click and an auto-scroll will happen slowly. After that, your entire window will be captured in just a few seconds.

PicPick also comes with a pixel ruler which can be used to measure the size of images that are displayed on your screen, a virtual whiteboard that allows users to draw on the screen, and crosshairs for pinpointing the positions of relative pixels.

3. Snagit

Snagit is a popular screenshot-capture and video-recording software created and distributed by TechSmith. It features a sleek interface that is more focused than PicPicks.

It also boasts of superior image-editing functionalities that are more polished than those of PicPicks. However, Snagit is not free and costs $50 per license, which is relatively high.

Because the main focus of Snagit is on screenshot capture, it comes with advanced screen capturing and editing features that blow the competition out of the water. For example, it has a Panoramic Capture feature that allows you to capture just a portion of a scrolling Window.

Capturing a scrolling window on Snagit is also easier and more user-friendly. All you have to do is navigate to the all-in-one-tab and click the “Capture” button. Then click on the yellow arrows depending on the direction you want to scroll. Snagit will capture everything visible on the window and create a single image that you can edit. Here’s a short video on how to capture a scrolling screenshot with Snagit.

Besides capturing screenshots, Snagit can also record screen activity. Its superior editing features also make it the best tool for creating tutorials.

4. Apowersoft Screen Capture Pro

Apowersoft Screen Capture Pro is an innovative and highly-customizable screenshot-capture and image-editing tool. The program leaves no stone unturned when it comes to screenshot capturing, thanks to its ten screenshot modes, which includes Scrolling screenshots, Menu, and Freehand, just to mention a few.

The scrolling Window capture mode allows you to capture an entire webpage, document, or browser, including contents hidden from the viewer. It also comes with a “Task Scheduler” that you can also use to take automatic screenshots.

In addition to screenshot capturing, Apowersoft Screen Capture Pro comes with a robust image editor which provides a wealth of options for you to edit your screenshots. What’s more, you can also use this tool to record the screen, upload, and share online. However, the program is quite expensive. A lifetime license goes for $79.95. You can also opt for monthly subscriptions starting from $12.95 per month.

Knowing how to capture scrolling screenshots can be of great use to you, especially if you’re looking into creating some instructional content. Scrolling screenshots can also come in handy when you want to report software issues, as you’ll be able to point out the issues clearly.

Now that you know how to do that, you can spruce up your Windows 10 OS by seeing our list of great Windows 10 screensavers. We also have a way for you to access the elusive WindowsApps folder on Windows 10.

How to Take a Scrolling Screenshot in Windows 10

By Bryan Clark 14 October 2019

When attempting to capture a webpage, especially one that requires additional scrolling, the default options in Windows 10 — like Print Screen, or the Snipping Tool — fall well short. These apps are designed for single-page screenshots, and don’t work when the entire area isn’t visible all at once.

For those times that you need to scroll to capture all the information, we like ShareX, an open source app that adds the functionality you need to capture the information you need.

1. Download and run ShareX executable file from https://getsharex.com/. There are alternatives here, if you’d prefer: PicPick is a popular one, as is SnagIt, but neither are free.

2. In the Setup window, read the License agreement and select I accept the agreement.

1. Click Next and follow the Setup wizard.

2. Click Finish to complete the setup and launch ShareX.

3. With the web-page open in the background, click Capture.

4. In the Capture menu that opens, select Scrolling capture. ShareX will provide a capture area demarcated by dotted lines.

5. Click on the capture area to open more options.

6. In the window that opens, click Select window or control to stroll. ShareX will now select the entire web-page by default.

7. Click Start scrolling capture.

8. Scroll down to the end of the webpage. When you reach the end of the web-page, the Output window will appear.

9. In the Output window, click the Upload/save depending on after capture settings button.

10. Click X to close the output window.

11. In the ShareX window, note the path where the screenshot is saved.

How to take scrolling screenshot on Windows 10, 8.1 & 7

Taking screenshots really make the things easier to keep an evidence, or just to keep a record of something important in your life. Taking a screenshot is a piece of cake on Windows computer or on an Android smartphone. But with technology advancing at the speed of light, you might need to take a long screenshot in iPhone, Windows, Android, or any other device, which you are having in hand. While most platforms don’t offer an inbuilt tool for taking scrolling screenshot, it can be possible with a third-party tool on Windows.

The MIUI on Xiaomi phones is the only user interface, which comes with an option to take scrolling screenshots. You can read this article to know how. But if you are on Windows, you will need a small piece of a program called PicPick to take scrolling screenshots. Apart from taking scrolling screenshots, the small piece of software is also capable of doing a number of other small tasks. You can know more about its capabilities in this article.

The PicPick scrolling window feature can be used to take any type of long screenshot on Windows. Taking scrolling screenshots make it easy to capture a complete webpage, long chat, or anything else, which can’t be captured in a single screenshot. This scrolling screenshot software work on Windows 10, 8.1 and Windows 7.

So let’s find how to take scrolling screenshot on Windows using below given steps.

Scrolling screenshot Windows 10,8 & 7

The steps you should follow

1. Download and install PicPick from this link.
2. Open the software, and let it run in the background.
3. Right-click on the taskbar icon of PicPick.
4. Move your pointer to ‘Screen Capture’.
5. A new menu will open, click on the option saying ‘Scrolling Window’.
6. Now just click on that window, where you want to take a scrolling screenshot.
7. I am taking the screenshot of the how2shout.com homepage here.
8. On clicking on the window, the process of taking the scrolling screenshot will begin.
9. The page will automatically scroll down, and the final screenshot will be exported to the default storage location of your hard drive.
10. The output image of scrolling screenshot which we have taken using the above-mentioned software of our website; will look somewhat like this.
11. Note: While taking a scrolling screenshot with PicPick, you should be on the top of the page to capture the full page.

PicPick automatically scrolls down through the page, and in case you are at the middle, anything at the top of it will automatically be cropped out. You can also be in the middle if you want to take the scrolling screenshot from that point of the page.

Taking scrolling screenshot is one of the best ways to capture the complete thing avoiding the mess of capturing multiple screenshots and stitching them together. Even after working that hard, you won’t get the desired outcome. But you can get impeccable performance and quality by taking scrolling screenshot with PicPick. Nobody will be able to understand, you actually took a scrolling screenshot.

Once I find a way to take long scrolling screenshot on Android, I will surely cover it in a new article. But PicPick is the best software to take long scrolling screenshots on Windows 10, and on the previous Windows versions.

I know you will thank me later for this worthy tutorial. Please give your feedback about the tool and the tutorial, in the comment section down below.

You might also like to see:

How to take a scrolling screenshot in Windows 10

This post will show you how to take a scrolling screenshot in Windows 10. Thus, instead of capturing only the visible area of a folder, webpage, or window, you can take a long screenshot that will capture the full content. You need to select the area from where scrolling starts and then auto scroll will start for the selected window to take the full screenshot. For doing this, we have covered some best free tools to take a scrolling screenshot.

Though there are many ways to take a screenshot in Windows 10, taking a screenshot beyond the visible part on a webpage or window is not possible using built-in features. Therefore, we have created this list which contains tools that can take scrolling screenshot of a particular window.

How to take scrolling screenshot in Windows 10

In this post, we are using three free scrolling screen capture freeware:

1. PicPick
2. ShareX
3. Screenshot Captor.

1] PicPick

PicPick software can be used free for personal or non-commercial use. Its scrolling screenshot feature is very useful as you can save scrolling screenshot as PDF, PNG, GIF, JPG, or BMP format. Also, before saving the captured screenshot, you can do the annotation part using text tool, brush, marker, image effects, highlight rectangle, and other tools.

Download its installer or portable version. When you have launched the software, use the File menu on its main interface, and click on Scrolling Window. Or else you can access the Options window and set a hotkey to trigger scrolling screenshot command. After that, you can select the area to capture in the foreground window and press the left click. It will activate its auto scroll option, complete the scrolling, and open the captured image on its Image Editor tab. Now you can use annotation tools and use Save As button in File menu to save the screenshot.

This software has many other options like set delay time for auto-scroll, capture an active window, use a ruler, magnifier, color picker, take a screenshot in freehand mode, and more.

2] ShareX

ShareX comes under the best freeware to take screenshots and edit them. It can capture full screen, any of the running windows, a specific region with a transparent background, etc. The scrolling capture feature is also there. You can also perform post-capture actions like draw using the freehand mode, add stickers on any part of the screenshot, add cursors, blur a portion, use an eraser, insert another image in the screenshot, etc. Finally, you can use Save as button to store the scrolling screenshot as GIF, TIFF, BMP, JPEG, or PNG format image.

After launching this software, you should first access application settings, hotkey settings, post-capture settings, etc., to set the options as per your needs. Just spend some time adjusting options.

After that, use the Capture menu, and select Scrolling capture.. option. It will open capture related settings. In that, you can set start delay, scroll method (keep it to the automatic setting for better result), scroll delay, minimum scroll count, etc. When you have adjusted settings, press the ‘Select window or control to Scroll’ button.

Now you can click on the scrolling area of the foreground window and it will do the processing automatically. When the scrolling part is done, the post-capture window is opened where you can edit the screenshot. Finally, you can use Save As button and save the scrolling screenshot taken by you.

This software can also record desktop screen as an animated GIF or in video format. Moreover, it provides many other tools that you can use. For example, you can upload images to Imgur, use an image ruler, video converter, image combiner, image splitter, etc.

3] Screenshot Captor

Screenshot Captor is another useful tool to take scrolling screenshots. It comes with vertical and horizontal scrolling options. The step by step process makes it easier to capture a full webpage or window with all the available content. It lets you save scrolling screenshot as TIF, GIF, PNG, BMP, PGM, TGA, or DCX image format. Apart from scrolling capture, it has an active window capture, a selected region, and full-screen capture options.

Grab its portable version or installer version. Launch it and its Quick capture bar will be visible on the top left side. In that bar, you can press Grab windows Object or scrolling window button. Or else, you can use the default hotkey (Ctrl+Shift+PrtScr) to activate scrolling screenshot mode. You can always change hotkeys by accessing Options of this software.

Now press the Ctrl+Left mouse button on the scrolling part of a window. A window will open prompting you to select the next action. You need to press Begin a Scrolling Window Capture option just like it is visible in the image above.

Another window will open where you can adjust vertical scrolling and horizontal scrolling options. You can set options like scroll by pages or single rows, auto-detect end of scroll, scroll delay, etc. Though the default options are good to proceed further, you can change options if needed. After that, press ‘Ok, begin scrolling and capturing!‘ Button.

This will begin the auto-scroll capture process. When it is completed, it will show preview and some options for customization. You can use options such as set left, right, bottom, top margins, set overlaps, etc. If the screenshot is good, press ‘OK, save built image‘ button.

Finally, you can use Save As button, and save the output.

BONUS TIP: This post shows how to take a screenshot of Lock Screen & Login Screen. Go here if you need to find out how to take screenshots of Logon Screen & Lock Screen.

The list of screenshot capturing tools might be endless, but the feature to take a scrolling screenshot is rare to find which is available in these free tools. Hope this list will be helpful to fulfill that requirement.

Date: October 10, 2020 Tags: Screen Capture