How to screenshot with no Print Screen key

Compact and gaming keyboards often drop this key, and keys break. Not one of the five methods below needs it.

Updated 15 September 2026

1. Win + Shift + S#

Your replacement, and an upgrade. It gives you a region selector with four modes, so you get exactly the area you wanted rather than a full screen to crop later. Nothing about it involves Print Screen. Full guide.

2. Pin the Snipping Tool to your taskbar#

For a mouse-only workflow, or when several keys have failed:

1. Press Win and type snip.
2. Right-click Snipping Tool and choose Pin to taskbar.
3. Click it whenever you need a capture, then click New.

Once it's pinned you can also right-click the taskbar icon for a jump list with capture modes on it.

3. Game Bar#

Win+G opens an overlay with a camera button. Click it for a full-screen capture saved to Videos › Captures. It's also the only built-in route to video recording on Windows 10.

It refuses to capture File Explorer and the desktop, treating them as system surfaces. Fine for apps and browsers, useless for showing someone your folder structure.

4. The on-screen keyboard#

If the key exists in Windows but is physically dead, you can press it with a mouse:

1. Ctrl+Win+O opens the on-screen keyboard.
2. Click Options and enable the numeric keypad if the layout looks cut down.
3. The PrtScn key is at the top right. Click it.

Slightly recursive — the keyboard itself appears in the capture — but it works, and it's the quickest test of whether your problem is a dead switch or a software conflict. If the on-screen key produces a capture, the hardware key is broken.

5. Map Print Screen onto a key you don't use#

Microsoft's PowerToys has a Keyboard Manager that remaps single keys. Point an unused key — Scroll Lock, Menu, right Alt — at Print Screen and you have a physical key again.

Worth it if a specific app you depend on responds only to Print Screen and doesn't recognise the modern shortcuts. Overkill otherwise.

Which keyboards are missing the key#

• Gaming laptops reassign the space to macro keys or RGB controls.
• Compact and travel laptops cut the function row's extras to save width. Galaxy Book models shift the row leftward when a numeric keypad is fitted.
• ThinkPads moved it out of the function row entirely, to the cluster near the arrow keys.
• Mac keyboards used with Windows laptops never had it. F13 often behaves as Print Screen; otherwise use Win+Shift+S.
• Some Chromebooks running Windows through a conversion have no equivalent key at all.

None of the five methods above need the key, and the wider Windows guide covers what each one captures.