Screen Print question

[Mary Patricia]

Hi All,

I'm wondering if there is a way to change the default file format for screen
prints captured using Alt+PrintScreen, from .bmp to a lower resoultion one.
I'm hoping to do this because my end users send a TON of screenshots to
various help desk/application development support staff and if I can reduce
some of the file sizes, it'll help with my mail storage. Anything involving
user training such as an additional software package is not really an option
for me. Thanks!

Patti

 

[AllenM]

Hi Patti,
Unfortunatley using the Alt-printscreen option is a system function that you
cannot change the setting on. Using a third party tool to reduce the file
size is not the option you want so that is not the answer. here's a
suggestion. Have them use paint brush to paste the file in and then do a
"save as" and save the file as a jpeg. Do a screen shot test and you'llee
the difference. I did a screen shot and when saved in the default 24 bit bmp
format the file was 2.97 MB. When I saed the file as a jpeg the same screen
shot was 177kb.

 

[Mary Patricia]

Allen, thanks for the reply. That's pretty much what I expected to hear but
I was hoping someone had a registry tweak for me.

Asking the users to do anything in a different method is a nightmare and
probably will never work. Our heaviest users of this feature just don't get
it...

 

[CWatters]

Hi All,

I'm wondering if there is a way to change the default file format for screen
prints captured using Alt+PrintScreen, from .bmp to a lower resoultion

one.

Easy...

If you have them in .bmp format use a program like IrfanView to batch
convert them to jpeg or similar.

 

[AllenM]

Out of curiousity how many users are we talking about?

 

[Jon]

Change the screen resolution itself

Quick test ...

800 x 600 = 1.37 mb
1024 x 768 = 2.25 mb

64% bigger

Jon

 

[Peter Foldes]

You cannot save it as jpeg when saving from MS Paint? Use the dropdown arrow to change from bmp to jpeg. Do you have office installed?

 

[Mary Patricia]

Our user community is about 3000 people; out of that I'd estimate about 300
people are "frequent" users of screen prints--- they use them for a number
of different things but my concern is that they are pasting them directly
into email and sending lots and lots of emails with sizes of 2-5 MB. If I
can reduce this, I'd be happy. One of our most frequent fliers sends
probably 30MB screenshots a day... she is representative of the users, not
in mail usage (although she is probably not the only one generating this
much) but in that we've sat with her about a dozen times to talk about this
topic and have not been able to change her methods...

I can't propose having the users save the file as a different type then
adding it to email because most of the users who do this can't make that
happen. Training issue. Folks who can perform this easily already are doing
so...

I'm not 100% against a third-party software that does this for the users as
long as it is invisible--- in other words, user presses alt+prntscreen and
takes their snap, then pastes it directly to an email. There should be no
extra keystrokes for the users to do to make this happen.

I'm not real keen on changing the display settings globally as we have a lot
of Oracle apps and homegrown apps that want specific display resolutions.

So, it might not be worth it to persue things further, unless someone knows
of a software package that will do this invisibly.

 

[AllenM]

Your wrong Peter. You can paste the screen shot into MS Paint and do a save
as to a jpeg file.

You cannot save it as jpeg when saving from MS Paint? Use the dropdown arrow
to change from bmp to jpeg. Do you have office installed?

 

[AllenM]

Well personally myself knowing how the corporate world of IT operates I'll
have to agree with you. Getting users to change their methods of doing
something, especially administrative assitants, is asking way to much. I
assume your on Enterprise Exchange and do not have store limitations that
are a concern of yours right now.

 

[Mary Patricia]

I
assume your on Enterprise Exchange and do not have store limitations that
are a concern of yours right now.

We are on Enterprise but storage limitations are a big, big deal for us...
we've got over 1.3TB mail storage just for our Headquarters (about 80% of
the users are on this cluster server). Looking for every little way to cut
that. Corporate culture!

 

[kurttrail]

We are on Enterprise but storage limitations are a big, big deal for
us... we've got over 1.3TB mail storage just for our Headquarters
(about 80% of the users are on this cluster server). Looking for
every little way to cut that. Corporate culture!

What email program are your users using?

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com/mscommunity
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei"

 

[Mary Patricia]

Outlook, either XP or 2003, mostly XP.

 

[Jon]

Sounds like you need to concentrate more on what you can do your end, rather
than the user end eg conversion programs to convert stored bmp files to jpg,
as someone suggested previously.

Jon

 

[AllenM]

Well I would take some logistics to my boss and express my concern over the
ever rapidly increase in users mailboxes and explaing to him this is
increasing expenses because of the many extra tapesyou have to use to do
your backups. Also should you ever need to recover from a disaster that the
larger the stores the longer it will take to do a recovery. He'll then ask
you why are we growing at such a rapid pace. Here's where you got him.
"Because users are saving every sent mail and attachments in their
mailboxes. He'll probably ask what you can do to avoid this and you offer
him the "Decrease the saving of sent emails and attachments" or start
archieving the Sent Mail folder of users. Of course you are going to get
resistance from Executive Administrative Assistants who hide behind the
power of their Executive but you'll find most people will be cooperative if
given a "Simple" way of doing things. Create step by step instructions with
screen shots on how a user can archieve a mail folder. Or how they can save
space by converting the screen shot to a file and attaching the file as
opposed to pasting it to the message body.

 

[kurttrail]

Outlook, either XP or 2003, mostly XP.

2003 gives the user a right click option to Format picture and then from
there to compress the photo(s).

Oops, I just tested it, and it made the .bmp file even bigger in size!
LOL!

Sorry!

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com/mscommunity
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei"

 

[LVTravel]

You might try to use this program which can create .jpg files using the
printscreen key. The free version on this site I use frequently. You can
set the default name so that it never changes or set it so that it
increments numerically each time a file is created.

The Plus version also has email feature built into it.

See if it meets your needs.

http://www.wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter.htm

 

[Guest]

Once you have the BMP on screen, click File (top left) and click Save AS
and select JPG or JPeG, give it the same name and this will compress it to
a JPG format which is a lot smaller than the BMP file. If for some reason or
another the JPG format is not available, clean out your browser cache to
allow JPG formats. Go to: Open IE (Internet Explorer)>Tools>Internet
Options>Delete Cookies and Delete Files including offline content.