Plenty of screen capture tools abound, but Microsoft's new Snip app, which brings life to your same, old, boring screenshots, can easily become one of the best screenshot tools for the PC.
Snip, which is still in beta, is part of Microsoft's Office suite of productivity tools and is available for download outside of the Windows Store, which means it is not limited as an exclusive feature for Windows 10.
As a standalone app, Snip lets users take screenshots and add voice annotations or doodles to them, effectively turning the app into a bare-bones video recording and photo-editing tool that also allows users to quickly share their screenshots with other people.
Snip hovers at the top of the screen, so users can easily access it when they need to. It lets them take basic screenshots of the desktop screen or a webcam image and create a new whiteboard image using the app's pen tool. Basic screenshots are copied to the clipboard or can be saved in a local location of the user's choosing.
Beyond the basics, users can also add voice recordings simply by hitting the record button. They can also doodle annotations while speaking using one of the four markers available on the app. Once the recording is finished, Snip will save the screenshot as an MP4 file on Microsoft's servers and provide users with a link or embed code that can be used to share the video to other people.
The app is also touchscreen-friendly, so users on tablets and convertible laptops can easily take advantage of the doodle feature using their digital pens.
Since it is still in beta mode, users should expect to come across a few bugs and problems, but early users say the lightweight Snip app seems to be working fine at the moment.
Still, there are no perfect apps, and Snip is one of them. One of the biggest beefs that users might find about this app is that sharing via email is currently limited to using Outlook 2013. If users want to email their screenshots or videos using another email client, they will have to do so by sharing the link Microsoft will give them or saving the file locally and sending it via email. Both alternatives should prove to be a hassle.
So far, Snip appears to be quite a hit on its first day, and many users have eagerly sent in their feedback to Microsoft to help with improving the features. If you wish to try out Snip for yourself, you can easily download it from the Office website for free.
