How to take a screenshot of part of a PDF page

Use Edit > Take a snapshot in PDF by Zaweba, then drag a box round the part of the page you want. The area is copied to the clipboard as a picture, so you can paste it straight into an email, a document, a slide or a chat. If you want the whole page instead, click the page rather than dragging.

It's a cleaner way of doing what many people do with the Windows screenshot keys. You don't capture toolbars or the edge of the window, and you don't have to crop anything afterwards.

Why use a snapshot rather than a screenshot

A screenshot grabs whatever is on your screen, at your screen's size and zoom. The snapshot tool works on the PDF page itself, so you choose the area in the document and get just that area. There's no taskbar in the corner, no scroll bar down the side, and no need to open another program to trim it.

It also works on any kind of page. Text, charts, diagrams, a scanned letter, a signature, a map: if it's on the page, you can take a snapshot of it. That makes it the right tool for the times when text copying won't do, such as a chart that's drawn rather than written, or a scan where there's no real text to select.

Taking the snapshot

Open the PDF and go to the page. Zoom in or out so the part you want is comfortably in view. A bit of room round it helps you draw the box accurately.

Choose Edit > Take a snapshot. Now drag from one corner of the area to the opposite corner. When you let go, the picture is on the clipboard.

Switch to wherever it's going and paste. In most email programs, word processors and presentation programs that's Ctrl+V.

To copy a full page, choose the same command and click the page instead of dragging.

Getting a sharp result

The thing that most often spoils a snapshot is drawing the box too tight, so a letter or the edge of a chart gets clipped. Leave a little margin. It's easier to trim a picture than to go back and take it again.

If the snapshot will be shown large, on a slide for example, zoom in on the PDF so the area fills more of the window before you take it. Small text then stays readable when the picture is stretched.

Check what you're copying, too. A snapshot copies everything in the box, including comments, stamps or highlights on that part of the page. If you want a clean copy, hide comments before you take it.

When a different tool is better

Sometimes you don't want a picture of the area at all. If what you're after is a photo or an illustration that sits on the page, Edit > Copy a picture copies it at its own size, which is often sharper than a snapshot of it. Just click the picture.

If you want the words, so you can edit them, select the text and copy it as text instead. Tables can be copied as rows and columns for a spreadsheet. And if you need pictures of whole pages saved as files, File > Export saves pages as PNG, JPEG or TIFF images at a resolution you choose.

The snapshot sits between all of those: quick, visual and exact about the area. Quoting part of a page, sharing a graph with a colleague, or dropping a diagram into your notes are all jobs it does well.

PDF by Zaweba is free software for Windows. It works offline with no account, so the pages you're copying from stay on your computer the whole time.