I use OneNote to design
Written by Verne on July 21st, 2007For those of you in the business of design, think about all the software you use. My personal list includes all of Adobe Creative Suite 3, EditPlus 2, and Microsoft Office OneNote.
Wait a sec… did I just say OneNote?! Yes, I did!
If you’ve ever been in the situation where you needed to eye-drop a colour from somewhere, or make a measurement, or simply grab a snippet of something on your screen, you’ll understand the importance of your computer’s Print Screen function. But Print Screen is a hassle. After all, it prints the whole screen, leaving you to crop out the unecessary parts. That’s where OneNote comes in!
Among all the cool note-taking functionality OneNote offers, it also comes equipped with a nifty screen clipping function that allows you to take a screenshot of any part of your screen simply by clicking and dragging your cursor over the desired area (similar to how you would select an area in Photoshop). And voila – no cropping required! OneNote gives you the option to save the screenshot to your clipboard (ready to be pasted somewhere) or to place it into a new note within OneNote. It even comes handy with a keyboard shortcut (windows key + s… sorry Mac users)!
I personally love the convenience of being able to take custom-sized screenshots whether I’m using it within design, word processing, or even instant messaging (MSN lets you simply “paste” the image into the message box and then sends it as a file to your buddy).
Now I know not everyone owns or can afford a copy of OneNote. Nor would many of you even consider purchasing it for this functionality alone (it runs for $99.95 USD per license). So my question to you is: are there any other existing applications that offer this same screen clipping capability? Drop me a comment if you have any leads!
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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 2:54 am and is filed under sharing the love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tara
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:42 pmYou need a Mac, its got the screen crop function built in apple shift 4 and voila choose you bit of screen to screen shot. 99 dollars sounds a bit steep for a program that does that in Windows I have to say.
Verne
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:21 pmThe Mac vs. PC debate is probably one that I don’t want to get into. As I’m now more on the business end of the creative industry, I find my PC to be a stronger companion in productivity. In design, I don’t really notice many (if any) defficiencies either though… with the exception of that screen clipping function.
My initial isntallation of OneNote wasn’t for the screen clipping function (just as OneNote is likely not ever sold on that feature). It was just a nice side effect. :)
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FeralBoy
August 17th, 2007 at 6:44 pmHey, if you’re using Vista, it has an app called Snipping Tool, that was originally just avaialble for the Tablet PC. Hit the Windows key, type ’snip’ then return and your home free. You can even draw irregular shapes with your mouse or your pen and cut a circular, or tringular, or ‘L’ shaped clip for that matter! With the pen on a tablet pc (or, if you’re using a Wacom tablet), it’s fantastic! That said, I generally use the OneNote clipping function…
Satish
August 18th, 2007 at 2:15 pmAre you sure that isn’t just with Ultimate? I have Home Premium and nothing came up with ’snip’?
George Gray
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 amSatish, the snipper tool is included in all flavors of Vista. Look in your accessories.
Ahsan R. Shami
September 4th, 2007 at 2:22 pmIf you use ALT + Print Screen, Windows will capture just the active window to your clipboard.