I have to say, I was pretty surprised by the Thomson Handbook's statement that capturing screenshots can be difficult and even time-consuming. While I can't speak for PCs (although Google informs me that you simply have to press the 'Print Screen' key), I can tell you that Mac has a some great key shortcuts that make it easy to catch anything on your screen and turn it into an image file. For any Mac users in the class, here are the shortcuts:
Command + Shift + 3 --> These keystrokes will automatically take a picture of your screen and save it as a file on the desktop (or if you've changed your default settings, to wherever you've selected).
Command + Shift + 4 + Spacebar --> Yes, it takes four fingers, but it's not difficult! These strokes will turn your cursor into a camera, and you can click the window, menu, icon or menu bar that you want to capture and again, it will save as a file to the desktop.
Ok, now that I've got that out of my system, I think the reading in the Thomson Handbook did have some good points about other things. For one, it reminds us to ask for permission from the copyright holder to use images. I think it failed to point out, though, that the copyright holder isn't always the person who took the picture. For example, photographers at the Exponent don't actually hold the copyright to any work they shoot for the Exponent; you'd have to contact the publisher to request reprint permission. Thinking about this made me wonder about screenshots and if you have to contact the company of the software you're taking screenshots of for permission to reprint. I'm sure it's not a big deal for this project, as our purposes are educational, but I'm curious for a professional setting what might be required.
In several of my professional writing courses, we have talked about the use of design and layout to emphasize your tone and mood as well as to express hierarchies and organization of information, so most of this information was repetitive for me. It's always good to have a refresher, though. It reminded me to check the typefaces I'm using and make sure that they're legible. Also, lots of people who aren't typographers or haven't learned anything about it don't realize that there are certain fonts that are meant to be paired or go well together in terms of pairing sans-serif and serif fonts. A good reference that I use for ideas sometimes is on a Typography blog that gives a table to match fonts. You can find the table by clicking here.
Difficult R8
I'm as surprised as you are about the Thompson Handbook saying that capturing screenshots can be difficult and even time-consuming. I’m a PC user and I have never once used the screenshot function until today. I have a computer that’s nearly a decade old with an OS that has kinks in it to say the least but I still found it very easy to do. Pushing the “Print Screen” button doesn’t open up any useful program or anything on my PC (perhaps because I don’t have a printer). However, it was still able to act as a copy and paste function. In less than a minute of thinking about it I opened several programs (word, paint, and open office). I was able to hit the button then paste (either Ctrl+V or right click then Paste) the screenshot into all of those programs and go from there. This seems like it would be an easy task for anyone with a little computer skill as we all should have.
Shane
Screen Captures
Something to consider with respect to the difficulties of screen captures: the quality of the image the procedure you describe produces. It is certainly easy to press "Ctrl" and "Print Screen," but translating that into a quality imagine you can use in professional instruction set is quite another.
Windows Makes Screen Captures Difficult
Wow, I definitely wish I had a Mac for this project. Windows doesn't open any kind of program with the 'Print Screen' button. It simply copies your display onto the clipboard. Then it's up to the user to manipulate that image, which is extremely inconvenient when the only pre-installed editing software is usually Paint. At work we use a program call 'SnagIt'. I looked up their website, and apparently there is a 30-day free trial. That might just be worth it for this project. The full version is $50, which is ridiculous.
I'm also one of the people that didn't realize that there was system for pairing fonts together. I tried your link, but I can't click it. Maybe it's because I'm using Firefox, but right-clicking and choosing 'properties' doesn't show me any kind of hyperlink. If you could re-post it, that'd be great. One of my main concerns after this week's reading is my ability to choose an effective font. I mixed serif and sans-serif all over the place on my resume draft, which was caught by several people.
Typefaces Link
Sorry that link didn't work; I thought I tested it!
Here's the blog with the chart ...
http://typophile.com/node/34364
Kristin
A Simple Command
There is a command on Windows so that it only screen captures the window you select instead of the whole computer screen. (Ctrl + Alt + Print Scr) Then you can just paste it (Ctrl + V) into Microsoft Word or Paint or whatever you want. Those simple commands work well enough for taking screen shots of computer related stuff. I just found out about it last semester and it was a time saver.
Looking at the Snagit video they have on their website I will say that looks really user friendly. As you said, 50 is a lot of money for that program. For me I will stick with the Window’s commands as the screenshots I usually take are just a simple button press away.
Print Scrn, Ctrl V, Edit
Personally, I have never had any problems taking screen shots or using the print screen button to create graphics. I am a PC user and just follow the process of hitting the Print Screen button, opening Paint, hitting control V to paste it, and then I do whatever kind of editing that I find necessary. Overall it is a very simple, yet effective method for copying and editing screen shots.
Although, my computer at work has some sort program on it that whenever I hit the print screen button an image of it pops up with a toolbar allowing you paste, copy, edit, zoom, and do several other things to it. I am not sure what type of program it is, but it sure is convenient.
Copyright permissions
I like your thoughts on copyright permissions. I really enjoyed your thought on screen shots of an actual program in use. Now I’m no lawyer, but I would think that if you own a license to the software, then how you utilize the program would be perfectly publishable without utilizing the image to produce direct revenue. I’ve been wrong many times before though, that’s just my two cents. It is a good point though legal implications can cause some nasty repercussions. This would definitely be one audience that needs to be taken very seriously in writing these type of documents.
Print Screen
I have found it to be relatively easy to make a screen shot. All I press the print screen key located at the top right portion of pc keyboards. After I pressed that button I open up paint shop in the apps section of the start menu. Once that has been opened I simply right click then past. That posts that image to the application. Even though it is easy to create the screen shot, I would find it difficult to make the proper statements and additions to the image to make it work with a set of instructions someone is trying to create.