How to Screenshot on Acer Laptop

If you have just pressed a few keys and hoped for the best, you are not alone. The good news is that your Acer laptop already has six built in ways to take a screenshot, and every one of them comes from Windows itself. You do not need Acer software, a download, or a paid app. This guide walks through each method with the exact keys to press, shows you where every screenshot ends up, and fixes the problems that make the Print Screen key look broken when it usually is not.

For most people, two methods cover almost everything. Press Windows + PrtSc when you want the whole screen saved as a file right away, and press Windows + Shift + S when you only want part of the screen. The other four methods handle single windows, timed captures of menus that disappear when you click, and games. Acer builds the hardware, but Microsoft builds the screenshot tools, so the steps below are written for Windows 11 first, with Windows 10 notes wherever the two versions behave differently.

Quick Answer: The fastest way to screenshot on an Acer laptop is Windows + PrtSc, which captures the whole screen and saves it straight to the Pictures > Screenshots folder. For part of the screen, press Windows + Shift + S and drag a box around the area you want to capture.

Which Screenshot Method Should You Use?

Each method below captures something slightly different, and they do not all save your screenshot in the same place. Use this table to pick the right one before you start pressing keys.

Method 1: Save the Whole Screen Automatically With Windows + PrtSc

This is the method to learn first, because it is the only keyboard shortcut that captures your screen and saves it as a file in one move. There is nothing to paste and nothing to name.

1. Get the screen ready. Open the page, document, or app you want to capture and close anything private you do not want in the picture.
2. Press Windows + PrtSc at the same time. On most Acer keyboards the PrtSc key sits in the top row, toward the right side.
3. Watch for the screen to dim for a split second. That brief dim is Windows telling you the screenshot worked.
4. Open File Explorer and go to Pictures > Screenshots. Your capture is there as a PNG file, named Screenshot (1), Screenshot (2), and so on.

If your Pictures folder is backed up by OneDrive, the same folder lives inside OneDrive instead, under OneDrive > Pictures > Screenshots. Nothing about the shortcut changes, only the folder’s location. If the screen did not dim and no file appeared, do not keep pressing the keys. Skip ahead to the troubleshooting section, because on many Acer models this shortcut needs the Fn key as well, which makes it Fn + Windows + PrtSc.

Method 2: Copy the Whole Screen With the Print Screen Key

The plain Print Screen key is the oldest screenshot method in Windows, and it still works on every Acer laptop. The one thing to understand is that it does not save a file. It copies the screen to your clipboard, and the screenshot only exists once you paste it somewhere.

1. Arrange your screen the way you want it captured.
2. Press PrtSc on its own. Nothing seems to happen, and that is normal. There is no flash, no sound, and no confirmation.
3. Open the app where the screenshot should go. Paint is the classic choice, but Word, an email, or a chat window all accept pasted images.
4. Press Ctrl + V to paste the screenshot.
5. Save the file with Ctrl + S if you need to keep it, and give it a name you will recognise later.

Two Acer notes are worth knowing here. First, the Print Screen key can be labelled PrtSc, PrtScn, or Print Screen depending on the model, and on some keyboards it shares the key with SysRq, which is printed underneath. Second, on Windows 11 the PrtSc key may open the Snipping Tool instead of copying the screen, because Microsoft changed the key’s default behaviour. If yours does that and you want the old clipboard behaviour back, open Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard and turn off Use the Print screen key to open Snipping Tool. Keyboard layouts and key placement vary a little between brands even though the Windows steps stay the same, which is why our guide to how to screenshot on a Sony laptop follows the same shortcut but points to a slightly different key position.

One more detail: if you use two monitors, PrtSc copies both screens side by side as one wide image. Use the next method, or Alt + PrtSc, when you only want one screen or one window.

Method 3: Screenshot Part of the Screen With Windows + Shift + S

When you only need a paragraph, a chart, an error message, or one corner of a busy screen, this is the best method on any Acer laptop. It opens the Snipping Tool capture bar and lets you choose exactly what to grab before you capture it.

1. Press Windows + Shift + S. The screen dims and a small toolbar appears at the top.
2. Pick a capture mode from the toolbar. Rectangle is the default and the one most people want. Window captures one open window when you click it. Full screen captures everything. Freeform lets you draw any shape around an area.
3. Drag your mouse around the area you want, then release the button. For Window mode, just click the window instead.
4. The snip is copied to your clipboard straight away, so you can paste it with Ctrl + V into a document, email, or chat.
5. To edit it first, click the small preview that pops up in the corner of the screen. The Snipping Tool editor opens with pen and highlighter tools, shapes, and a crop tool, so you can circle the important part or trim the edges before saving.
6. Press Ctrl + S to save the finished image, or leave it to Windows 11, which also saves snips to Pictures > Screenshots automatically when that setting is on in the Snipping Tool app.

The editor has two tricks that are easy to miss. Text Actions can pull the words out of your screenshot and copy them as text, which is handy for error codes and long settings names. Quick Redact can hide email addresses and phone numbers before you share a screenshot with support. Students use this method more than any other, because a quick snip, a circle around the key point, and a paste is all it takes to drop a diagram into their notes. If you take notes that way every day, the machines in our guide to the best laptops for note taking are picked with exactly that workflow in mind.

Method 4: Screenshot Only the Active Window With Alt + PrtSc

Sometimes the whole screen is too much. If you want one program window, cleanly, without your desktop, taskbar, or other apps around it, Alt + PrtSc is the shortcut.

1. Click on the window you want to capture so it becomes the active window. It should sit in front of everything else.
2. Press Alt + PrtSc.
3. Open Paint, Word, or the app you are sending the screenshot to, and press Ctrl + V to paste the window.
4. Save with Ctrl + S if you need a file.

Like the plain Print Screen method, this one copies to the clipboard and never creates a file on its own, which catches people out. It is perfect for bug reports and how to answers, where the person helping you needs to see one settings window or one error box and nothing else. On a multi monitor setup it also avoids the giant two screen image that PrtSc produces.

Method 5: Use the Snipping Tool App and Its Timer

Opening the Snipping Tool app itself, rather than the keyboard shortcut, gives you one feature the shortcut does not: a delay. A timer lets you open a menu, hover over something, or trigger a pop up first, and have the screenshot taken a few seconds later, which is the only reliable way to capture menus that vanish the moment you press a key.

1. Click Start, type Snipping Tool, and open the app.
2. Choose your capture mode in the app if you want something other than a rectangle.
3. Click the clock icon to set a delay. On Windows 11 you can delay the snip by 3, 5, or 10 seconds.
4. Click New, then quickly open the menu or pop up you want to capture, and wait for the timer to finish.
5. Annotate the snip with the pen, highlighter, or shapes if you need to, then save it with Ctrl + S or the save icon.

On Windows 10 the same app exists in an older form, and Windows + Shift + S opens the same capture bar there, so the method itself carries over. The Windows 11 version also records video: press Windows + Shift + R or switch the app from Snip to Record, and your clips land in Videos > Screen Recordings. That is a bonus rather than a screenshot method, but it is worth knowing before you go looking for recording software.

Method 6: Screenshot a Game With Xbox Game Bar

Games are the one place the normal shortcuts can let you down, because a full screen game may not hand the Print Screen key to Windows at all. The Xbox Game Bar is built into Windows 11 and Windows 10 for exactly this job.

1. Open your game and get to the moment you want to capture.
2. Press Windows + Alt + PrtSc. A small notification appears to confirm the screenshot was saved.
3. Find the image later in Videos > Captures. Game Bar names its files after the game, with the date and time added.

If the shortcut does nothing, press Windows + G to open the Game Bar overlay, find the Capture widget, and click the camera icon instead. Game Bar has to be switched on for any of this to work, so check Settings > Gaming > Game Bar if the overlay never appears. Remember that Game Bar captures the game or app window you are in. It does not capture the plain desktop or File Explorer, so use Method 1 or Method 3 for those.

Where Do Acer Laptop Screenshots Go?

Half of all screenshot confusion is really a filing problem. The screenshot worked, but it went somewhere the reader did not expect. Where yours landed depends entirely on which method you used.

• Windows + PrtSc saves a file to Pictures > Screenshots, or to OneDrive > Pictures > Screenshots if OneDrive backs up your Pictures folder.
• PrtSc and Alt + PrtSc save nothing at all. The image sits on your clipboard until you paste it with Ctrl + V, and it is gone for good once you copy something else or restart.
• Windows + Shift + S copies the snip to the clipboard, and on Windows 11 it also saves a copy to Pictures > Screenshots when the Automatically save screenshots setting is switched on in the Snipping Tool app. You can check or change that folder inside the app under the See more menu and Settings.
• Xbox Game Bar saves to Videos > Captures, a folder many people never open until they go hunting for a game screenshot.

These locations are set by Windows, not by Acer, so they are identical on every Windows laptop. If a screenshot habit from another brand has you looking in the wrong folder, our walkthroughs of how to screenshot on a Samsung laptop and how to screenshot on a Gateway laptop point at the same folders for the same reason.

Two habits will save you a lot of hunting. First, if you take several screenshots in a row with the clipboard methods, turn on clipboard history. Press Windows + V and choose Turn on the first time, or switch on Clipboard history under Settings > System > Clipboard. From then on, Windows + V shows your recent screenshots and text, up to 25 items, and you can pick the one you want instead of retaking it. History clears when you restart, unless you pin an item. Second, if you want your saved screenshots somewhere else entirely, right click the Screenshots folder in File Explorer, open Properties, and use the Location tab to move it.

Troubleshooting: Screenshot Problems on Acer Laptops

Most screenshot problems on Acer laptops come down to three causes: the Fn key, a Windows setting, or another app grabbing the shortcut first. Work through the fixes below in order and you will solve nearly all of them.

Print Screen is not working

Start with the Fn key, because it is the most common cause on Acer machines. On many Aspire and Swift models the Print Screen function shares its key with something else, and the PrtSc label is printed in a different colour or inside a small box. That means the key only screenshots when you hold Fn at the same time, so try Fn + PrtSc and Fn + Windows + PrtSc. If you would rather not hold Fn every time, restart the laptop, press F2 to enter the BIOS, and look on the Main tab for Function Key Behavior. Switching it changes whether the top row keys act as function keys or media keys first, and you save the change with F10.

Next, check the Windows 11 setting that decides what the key does. Open Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard and look at Use the Print screen key to open Snipping Tool. With it on, PrtSc opens the capture bar instead of copying the screen, which feels like nothing was saved. Microsoft’s own advice when the shortcut does nothing at all is to check that same settings page, and to make sure no other app has taken the shortcut over. That last point is real: the Dropbox desktop app has a Share screenshots using Dropbox option in its preferences, on the Backups tab, and while it is on, your Print Screen captures are quietly saved to Dropbox instead of behaving normally. Turn it off there if you do not want that.

Finally, run a simple test. Press PrtSc, open Paint, and press Ctrl + V. Because the plain key gives no confirmation at all, the screenshot has often worked perfectly and was simply never pasted anywhere. Trying Windows + Shift + S as a test also tells you a lot: if the capture bar opens, Windows is fine and the problem is the key itself or its Fn behaviour.

Screenshots are not saving

The usual story here is that the screenshot was never meant to be saved. PrtSc and Alt + PrtSc are clipboard only methods, so there is no file to find, no matter how carefully you search. If you need a file every time, use Windows + PrtSc, or paste the clipboard image into Paint and save it yourself.

If you did use Windows + PrtSc and the Screenshots folder is empty, check whether OneDrive is involved. When OneDrive backs up your Pictures folder, your screenshots are in OneDrive > Pictures > Screenshots instead of the local folder, and they are exactly the same files. Microsoft has retired the old OneDrive checkbox that saved screenshots on its own, so folder backup is how this works now. For Snipping Tool captures, open the app, go to See more > Settings, and confirm that Automatically save screenshots is on and that the folder shown there is the one you have been checking. And if a game screenshot has gone missing, remember Game Bar files live in Videos > Captures, nowhere near the Pictures folder.

How do you screenshot if your keyboard has no Print Screen key?

A small number of compact keyboards leave the PrtSc key off entirely, and Microsoft documents an official replacement for exactly this case: press Fn + Windows + Space Bar to take a screenshot. It behaves like the Print Screen shortcut, so the image can be pasted or printed afterwards.

You also have two routes that never touch the Print Screen key at all. Windows + Shift + S opens the Snipping Tool capture bar and is the better everyday choice, and opening the Snipping Tool app from the Start menu and clicking New does the same job with a mouse alone. Between those three options, a missing key never has to stop you taking a screenshot.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Verdict

For everyday use on an Acer laptop, Windows + PrtSc is the screenshot shortcut to remember, because it captures the whole screen and files it away in one press. Reach for Windows + Shift + S whenever you only need part of the screen, which for most people is most of the time, and keep Windows + Alt + PrtSc in mind for games. If a key ever seems dead, check the Fn behaviour and the Accessibility keyboard setting before you blame the laptop, because on Acer machines it is almost always one of those two.