Chrome Web Store has accumulated a large library of powerful extensions. It has an extension for just about everything and many of the extensions are as powerful as the add-on you’ll find for Firefox. That said, extensions do increase Chrome’s memory usage. On a good day, when users only have one tab open, Chrome tends to consume a lot of RAM, so most users are careful about the extensions they install in the browser.
Screenshot tool in Chrome
The Chrome web store has many extensions that can capture screenshots in the browser. Some can take screenshots of windows outside of Chrome, while others can take a scrolling screenshot of an entire web page. These extensions will definitely consume more RAM, so a stock screenshot tool is better. Chrome has recently added.
Enable the screenshot tool in Chrome
The screenshot tool in Chrome is new, but it is available on the stable channel and should be enabled by default. If not, follow these steps to enable it.
- Open a new Chrome tab.
- In the URL field, enter chrome: // flags and hit the Enter key.
- Use the search bar to find the Screenshot flag on the desktop.
- Open the drop-down menu next to it and select On.
- Restart Chrome to apply the change.
- The screenshot tool will be enabled.
Use the screenshot tool in Chrome
The screenshot tool in Chrome is limited to the browser’s own tabs and windows. To use it, follow the steps below.
- Open Chrome and navigate to the website you want to take a screenshot of.
- Click the share button on the URL.
- From the menu, select screenshot.
- Click and drag the mouse over the area you want to capture.
- The screenshot will be captured and previewed in a small window.
- Click the download button in the preview to save the screenshot locally.
- Screenshots are saved as PNG files.
conclusion
The screenshot tool in Chrome is basic at the moment. If you have an extension installed to take screenshots and you use it frequently, it is probably much better than Chrome’s screenshot tool. That said, improvements are in the works for it. A built-in editor for annotating screenshots has been added to Chrome Canary and it will eventually make it to the stable version. The tool may not suit everyone’s needs, but if you only take screenshots occasionally, a standard tool that is as easy to use as this is worth having and using.