Hardcopy

When MS Dos was the primary operating system on a computer, hitting the PrintScreen key would have printed out a hard copy of your screen. It was particularly useful in certain situations, but now, while using MS Windows, the PrintScreen key only takes a screenshot that you need then to paste it in Paint or other image editors, if you don't have a specialized program for taking screenshots. Hardcopy provides more than the possibility of printing a hard copy of your screen, just by pressing a button on your keyboard. Besides printing your screen, you can use this application to capture a window or certain elements on that window and perform a series of adjustments, before printing.

There is no need to install additional tools or drivers or update existing ones, before starting Hardcopy. The software is lightweight, which means that you can download it from the Internet in a few moments and install it just as fast. Unless you are using Windows 95 or an earlier and obsolete edition, you can use the software on any platform, from Win 98 to Win 8.

Once installed, Hardcopy will launch automatically and you can bring up its user interface, by selecting the appropriate option, after right clicking its system tray icon. You can perform numerous actions on the loaded images or screenshots, from adjusting the brightness, contrast or colors, to applying effects, creating a photo library or batch converting images.

While the application is running, hitting the PrintScreen key will print the entire screen, using your default printer. You should also know that Hardcopy works with virtual printers as well. Pressing the PrintScreen key, while holding down the Alt key, will print active windows. The software will also place a printer icon on each window's title bar, next to the minimize, restore and close controls and you may click this icon to print your windows.

You can navigate through a series of sub-menus, on Hardcopy interface, to assign different actions for the PrintScreen, Scroll Lock or Pause keys, or certain combinations for the system tray icon and for the printer icon. Besides the aforementioned actions, the software also allows you to take screenshots, copy them to the clipboard, bring up a Save dialog, copy the screenshot to MS Word or send it by email.