SnagIt, from TechSmith, is the first screen capture program I've ever used, but I've discovered that it's quite useful and now I use it frequently. SnagIt has the capability to capture an exact image of anything that you can see on your screen. You can then edit it, make notes, or draw on the image, paste it into another application program, send it straight to your printer, save it as a file, send it as an email, or post it to a webpage.

SnagIt has five modes of capture:

1. Image capture - I have been able to capture full screens, web graphics, and recipes with which I could not do Copy and Paste and also was able to capture a scanned image from a damaged file. The latter enabled me to prove a mailed rebate in order to get $30 which was owed to me. Options include an auto scroll feature to get an image that is longer than one screen and having the mouse pointer showing or not showing.
   
   Another interesting thing I did was to open a scanned photo (.bmp) in Adobe Photoshop in order
   to set the image size at 255 x 255 pixels or less for an icon. Then I opened SnagIt, set Input to Region, set Output to File, set Output Properties to ICO - Windows icon and clicked on Capture. I dragged a rectangle around the picture and saved it. Now I can use the file to replace any icon I want-such fun!
   
   
2. Text capture - Captured text is editable. I captured a recipe that I saved as a .txt file in My
   Documents, opened it in MS Word for editing spacing, opened American Greetings CreataCard to
   select a recipe card, selected parts of the text for Copy and Pasted it into the recipe card template.
   It worked like a charm.
   
   
3. Video capture - records on-screen activity and saves it as an .avi movie file. To show how to make a new family file in Family Tree Maker, I made a little video clip by opening both FTM and SnagIT, clicking on Video capture, and following directions given in the tutorial. TechSmith has a program called DubIt to add live or recorded sound tracks to your avi file. DubIt comes on the CD with SnagIt or it can be downloaded FREE from www.techsmith.com.
   
   
4. Web capture - this feature captures .jpg, .gif, or .png images from a designated website and its links, if desired. Web capture can go 1-3 levels into the site, and minimum and maximum size can be set. I found a website that appeared to have a good number of images, selected properties for 3 levels deep, .jpgs and .gifs only, and a minimum size of 25 kb. SnagIt downloaded about 500 images, but saved only 13 because the others were too small.
   
   
5. Printer capture - I printed a family page from FTM to the SnagIt virtual printer and emailed the file to a friend. This can be done from any program that has a Print option.

SnagIt includes a component called SnagIt Studio in which some image editing can be done, and Add-ins are included for MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Internet Explorer and Adobe FrameMaker applications so that SnagIt can be accessed directly from those programs.

Minimum system requirements are: MS Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, or XP; 90 MHz processor (400 MHz recommended); 16 MB RAM (64 MB recommended); Windows-compatible sound card and microphone recommended; and 14 MB hard-disk space.

An evaluation copy of the program may be downloaded from the website above. Excellent tutorials are provided both in video and written format, and I talked to a real live support person.