Annotated screenshots are the best!

You may love it or hate it but the bottom line is that writing documentation is necessary for most projects. One of my colleagues is excellent at reinforcing that my future self will thank my past self for writing great documentation. Annotated screenshots have become a staple in all the documentation I write.

My tool of choice is a software product called Snagit. Snagit is made by TechSmith (Jing, Camtasia, Relay) and quite frankly I can't live without it. Snagit isn't free but libraries get a substantial discount because they consider us "educational customers"  I can't post the price we paid but it's really good. To get a quote from TechSmith go here.

Below is an example of an annotated screenshot I made for a training a while ago. If I were to write these steps out it would be painful. (Please click on the picture to get a full size view of it)

*note that this might me an extreme example but I wanted to showcase what is possible when using Snagit.

Snagit can do MUCH more that just screenshots here is their "promo" video which explains all the things you can do with the software.

Snagit Screen Capture Software & Screen Recorder | TechSmith

Comments

[Jennifer Endres Way]

Thanks for posting this! We ordered Snagit last week and it is very user friendly for the video we tried it for.