Snagit
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Introduction
Snagit is a powerful screen capture software program that allows its users to capture, edit and embellish screen shots of part or all of a webpage. It offers several different methods of capturing images and exporting them to outside software programs and online sites. According to CEOWorld Magazine, Snagit is currently one of the best screen capture programs on the market. These sentiments are echoed by PCWorld.com users who rate it at four stars out of five and CNETdownload.com’s editors who rate it with five out of five stars. Snagit v10.0.0 has been downloaded nearly three million times since its release on May 11, 2010. The program is developed by TechSmith Corporation based out of Okemos, MI.
History
Screen capture technology has been a growing industry. It began in the early 1990’s as a solution to the growing need of visual documentation for the software programs of the time that were growing increasingly complex. Software consumers were finding it difficult to understand textual help files explaining how to do something in the software programs of the era. Help files utilizing visual depictions became the obvious choice of programmers for showing users how to do something with their software. Enter the technology that we now call Screen Capture. The technology itself has grown a lot since it birth in the early 1990’s. It’s moved from being just a means of providing a visual component used to answer computer program questions to having a wider use in both personal and professional settings. In fact go to any corporation office or school classroom and you’ll find a multimedia component to all most all presentations. Most people will agree that pictures and images help make these presentations more meaningful and keep them interesting. This change in presentations facilitated the need for software that not only allowed users to collect images from their computers and internet but also edit the pictures into a form that could be viewable in their presentation software. One such software is called Snagit.
History of Snagit
Snagit was originally created in May 1990 and was used as an internal tool for TechSmith employees. This tool gave their employees the means of showing TechSmith clients visual representations of programs TechSmith was developing. In the Fall of 1990, TechSmith, realizing the software’s potential, began working on a commercial version of Snagit. The first commercial version of Snagit is released in the Spring of 1991 and arrives on the computer scene at a time when Windows is still growing as an operating system. According to TechSmith’s history of Snagit website the program is first described as ‘the utility Microsoft Windows forgot’ by Brian Livingston in the book “Windows Secrets.” Snagit begins to catch on in December 1994 when its then current edition, version 2.2, sees its product registrations triple. That following Spring and Summer Snagit receives a five star rating from PC Computing and a four star rating from Ziff-Davis’ Interactive Review Summary Report.
In June 1996 Snagit becomes the first Windows screen capture utility with the release of Snagit v3.1. This distinction is earned by the addition of programming that allows users to capture all of a scrolling window. Snagit v4.2.1 is released in June 1998. This upgrade gives users the ability to use image effects and to change an image’s color attributes such as brightness and contrast. April 2001 sees the release of Snagit v5.2 which among other things creates a magnifier window which shows an enlargement of the area around the cursor and gives users the ability to capture non-rectangular areas. The 6.0 version of Snagit is released in November 2001 and introduces the Web Capture feature. This feature gives users the ability to capture multiple image types on one webpage at the same time.
April 2003 sees the release of Snagit v6.2. This version introduces addins that allow Snagit to link images directly to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Three months later version 6.3 is released and introduces Edge Effects into the program’s editing interface.
TechSmith releases a major upgrade in Novermber 2003 with Snagit v7.0. This version adds Paint Tools that include the ability to pan, draw lines, arrows and shapes as well as a magnifying glass, eraser and stamp. January 2006 sees the release of Version 8.0. This version gives Snagit the ability to capture links on web pages and output to the PDF file format.
The most recent version of Snagit, Version 10.0.0 was released in May 2010. This version includes the addition of the All-in-One capture option as well as the addition of some page effects support for Windows 7.
Picture Capture
Capturing pictures is extremely simple. Snagit gives you several different options for capturing a picture. These options include:
"All in One" The smart "all in one" capture tool is a new addition to the software. This tool shows on the screen as a cross hair and allows the user to select the entire webpage, a certain section on the webpage (like the elatewiki logo at the top of this screen) or highlight a range of space on the screen (like all six tabs at the top of this screen).
"Fullscreen" This option acts like the print screen button on your computer. It copies a picture of your computer screen into the Snagit editor.
"Copy to clipboard" Copies a screen shot directly to the clipboard. This option skips Snagit's editing platform.
"Copy Text to Clipboard" This option allows users to select text from a browser or website and import the selection into the Snagit editing platform. Here the user can make minor changes to their selection and send them on to the clipboard for addition to another file.
"Freehand" Allows the user to select any region of the webpage. These selections can be nonlinear.
“Menu With Time Delay” This option gives users ten seconds to navigate a series of menus before it captures a pictures. The option is useful when the user needs to show a certain menu that is only accessible through one or more menus.
Editing in Snagit
Snagit has a large selection of editing options which give users the ability to customize a graphic selection. The main options include:
Crop tool – allows the user to trim out unwanted parts of a picture.
Cutouts – allows the user to cut out a section of a capture.
Message Bubbles – allows messages to be added to a picture.
Lines and shapes
Border Adjustment - allows the user to adjust the borders of the image with torn, cut, rolled or shadowed look.
Create Your Own Graphic – allows users to create their own graphic style.
Exporting Images in Snagit
Snagit gives users several options for exporting their creations. Those options include exporting to various programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, MSPaint and a Snagit companion site called Screencast.com. When a user exports an image they have the option of exporting to either a new file or one currently open on the desktop. Users also have the choice of copying or linking their image to the new file. In addition to these options Powerpoint and Excel users have the option of exporting their images to new slides or spreadsheet pages.
Users also have the option of sending their images by email or FTP. Additionally, Snagit also gives users the option to save graphic to their computer’s hard drive.
Snagit Uses
Snagit has many uses in both the personnel and corporate worlds. Corporate uses are wide ranged since this is an image capturing and editing software. Graphic imaging companies like ad companies and book companies can use this program to create and showcase images for their clients. Other companies can use this software to create more interesting presentations for their companies. It is widely known fact that presentations with images are more likely to keep the audience’s attention then presentations without images.
Personnel uses for this software come in many different forms. Students can use this program to embed images into a class project or homework assignment. They can also use it to create images in a class presentation. Parents can use this software to create collages and mementos of their children and families. It could also be used as a fun activity with friends who create goofy images of themselves or random pictures they find online.
This program’s strength comes from the fact that it literally has hundreds if not thousands of uses and that TechSmith is constantly looking for ways to improve the software.
Conclusion
Snagit evolved from an internal tool used by TechSmith employees to one of the most widely used screen capture software programs currently on the market. It helped create the screen capture industry. It has become a robust program that gives users several options of capturing images from the internet and offers a large selection of editing options that allow users to turn captured images into specialized images. Snagit also offers a multitude of exporting options which allow users to save and send their images to outside computer programs. The program itself can be used by many different industries in both the personal and corporate worlds and will continue to grow and expand for many years to come.
Bibliography
http://ceoworld.biz/ceo/2010/04/13/top-best-screen-capture-software-for-you
http://download.cnet.com/Snagit/3000-2192_4-10004813.html
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/screencapture/gr/snagit.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,3289-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html
http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp
http://www.techsmith.com/snagit/history.asp
Baecker, Ron. “Showing instead of telling.” ACM Special Interest Group for Design of communication. Proceedings of the 20th annual international conference on Computer Documentation. New York: ACM, 2002. 10-16.
Jin, Jesse S. and Wu, Sue R.. “Screen capture: a vector quantization approach.” ACM International Conference Proceeding Series Proceedings of the Pan-Sydney area workshop on Visual Information processing. Darlinghurst, Australia: Australian Computer Society, Inc. 2004. 43-47.
Tutorial
See Also
http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp