There are hundreds of applications available for Windows to capture the screen and save it as an image file on your local drive. Windows 11 itself has a built in function to use the PrintScreen keys on the keyboard for taking a screenshot and storing it in the clipboard memory for use. But what if you want to send the screenshot directly to the connected printer for printing?
If you want to take a screenshot and send it to printer directly without saving it as a file first, then you can make use of an open-source software called Greenshot. Here is how:
- First of all you will have to download and install Greenshot from https://getgreenshot.org/. It is a very small application and installs a small icon in the notification area of Windows Desktop.
- In order to begin taking a screenshot, you have to click on Greenshot icon in the notification area and choose a type of screenshot – capture region, capture last region, capture window or capture full screen. There are also hotkeys assigned for each of these screenshot types.
- When the screenshot has been taken, it will display another menu on your screen from which you have to select Send to printer. This will begin the printing of the captured image using the default printer configured on your Windows PC.
So this is how easy it is to setup a Windows 11 computer for sending screenshots directly to the connected printers. But how the screenshot is printed on the paper can also be controlled in the Greenshot settings. We can change the print paper layout settings – shrink to fit the paper size, enlarge to fit the paper size, rotate printout to page orientation, center printout on paper, print date & time on the page.
We can also choose whether to print it using full color, grayscale, black & white, or inverted colors. If you are trying to save the color cartridges, then you can choose to print it in grayscale mode.