How-To #25: Taking Screen Shots On The Android

Taking screen shots on the Android is currently not a simple task. There has been  rumors of screen shot taking capability coming out for Gingerbread and Honeycomb but that has been quickly shot down soon after its release. There are some custom roms with built in screen shot but most still lack native support. You can check to see if the feature is activated by your vendor on your device by holding power + menu(home) keys. If it works, a click sound is played. 

Here are three ways to do screen shot capture:


- Root Users: Download the free Android ER screen shot app
- No-Root Users: Pay $4.99 and download the Screenshot IT app
- No-Root Users: Use the free Android SDK 

Instruction for taking screen shots on the Android SDK.

1) Download and unzip the Android SDK. I unzipped mine to C:android-sdk-windows

2) Make sure the USB driver is installed

3) Connect the Android device to the computer

4) On the computer, open Run application located in the start menu or by pressing Win+R

5) Type in cmd to open Command Prompt

6) In Command Prompt navigate to the Android SDK that you downloaded. i.e. type cd C:\android-sdk-windows\tools

7) Then type ddms  to launch Dalvik Debug Monitor Service

8) In Device menu click “Screen Capture” or press Ctrl + S.

9) To save another screenshot -> click Refresh -> Done when you’re finished.