I’m sure that in every profession, there are tools of the trade that people favor over others. A mechanic will have a favorite wrench. A hair stylist will have a favorite pair if scissor. A chef will have a favorite knife.

Here at MarkNet, our tools are programs. And my favorite program is SnagIt, The Windows Screen Capture software Utility tool. I use this program all throughout my day, and I don’t know how I could work without it.

SnagIt is the über advanced “print screen” function.  It captures an image of your screen, and allows you to made notes and draw attention to certain parts of the page. It lets me take a snag of a website I am designing, and show the designer exactly what needs attention. I use it to draw arrows to specif images, links, or text, and add a callout (think cartoon bubble) where I can type in what I need done.

Here, I am pointing exactly to the font where I want the color changed.

It saves me so much time because I’m no longer going back and forth with people trying to pinpoint what I am referring to. I point out exactly the area I want to focus on.

SnagIt is quick to use to. I don’t like to overload one image with all the changes I need, so I make multiple snags of the same site, and devote one area of change to it. I snag the site, use the tools to point out what I need done, save it to my hard drive, and then I move on to the next change. Once saved, its an image, so I can e-mail it, insert into Word documents, and upload it to various sites.

Other fun features of SnagIt are:

• The Highlight Tool
• The Stamp Tool
• The Text Tool
• Record Screen Video
• The Eyedropper Tool (great for matching up colors exactly)

Here, I’ve highlight the PRUnderground logo, added a stamp over a word I want removed, and added text to describe my changes.

I recommend this program to anyone who wants to easily express ideas and changes to sites. It gets rid of that misunderstand of, “Change that image on the left to a smaller size,” by allowing you to show the size  you want. There is a free trial available, as well as a paid version.I hope you all enjoy this program as much as I do!

Check out our video of me using SnagIt!

Peace, Love, and Tweets,

Jacqueline