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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Screen Shots and Your Digital Archive

If you archive on DVDs or CDs, or use those types of disks as a backup system, it can be tedious to label those disks accurately. There are some concerns about if permanent markers in some way damage the disks. Also, handwriting can be hard to read. Using labels that stick onto a disk can be just as problematic. Some labels can cause disks to become stuck in some readers, potentially breaking them, or at least jamming up your system. Also, the adhesive on the label is almost certainly not archival.

What to do? I like to take a screen shot of a window containing the files I am burning/have burned to disk. On a PC, press CTRL, ALT and 'Print Screen' at the same time. This creates a screen shot of just the "active" window, so make sure that the window you want to copy is on top of everything. You can then paste the screen shot into either PhotoShop or Word.

In PhotoShop, just start a new document. The software will automatically size the new document to the same size as the screen shot (which is on your system's clipboard). Paste your screen shot into your new document. Crop and resize, if needed, and print on plain paper. I find a 5" square is good for most sleeve disk systems, but experiment with what works best for you. I then just cut out the label with scissors and slip it into the sleeve along with the disk.

On a Mac, hold down control-command-shift-4. A crosshair cursor will appear. Simply drag the cursor over the part of your screen you wish to capture. This will copy a screen shot of the area to your clipboard, and you can continue as above.

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