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A couple of weeks ago I tweeted this:

Hey Twitter, when you type 'snip' into your Windows Start Menu search box do you find a tool? Like this one? pic.twitter.com/f9omoo7gl1

— Ned Potter (@ned_potter) October 1, 2014

If you click on the date of the tweet above you'll get taken to it on Twitter itself, you'll see about a gazillion replies to this - about a third of people already knew about the Snipping Tool (and were appropriately smug) but for the other two thirds it was a case of MIND = BLOWN.

So if you've not used it before, do check out the Snipping Tool. It allows you to take a screen-grab of the exact portion of the screen you need, without having to crop it down afterwards. It seems simple but I've created library induction and teaching materials WITH Snipping Tool for the first time this year, and it's saved me HOURS.

People shared some other tips in response to this:

@ned_potter Pixie- colour pick tool. Download .exe, pin to toolbar and you've got a 1-click colour code finder-outer pic.twitter.com/7RTWsPjyj2

— Jade Kelsall (@jadekelsall) October 2, 2014

.@ned_potter In prev role had Publisher not InDesign. 'Measurement' tool a must for precise positioning/staying sane pic.twitter.com/RsxO3tJlxY

— Emily Lawty (@emilylawty) October 2, 2014

@ned_potter just found sticky note (as for snipping, type it into the search box in windows)

— Internet Archaeology (@IntarchEditor) October 2, 2014

... and Ruth Jenkins wrote a whole blogpost about PowerPoint - the tip about using the Align tool was completely new to me.

Another tip worth mentioning with PowerPoint is that almost anything can be right-clicked upon, and then Save As Picture can be chosen. So if you really need an image of some text (and this is actually A Thing - for example if you want to make a billboard on Photofunia, you need a picture of the words you wish to display) then create a text box, write in it, right-click and Save As Picture. Like I did here: Created in Photofunia

You can also Print Screen something, crop it, then save it as an image - but of course you don't need to do that now because of the joyous SNIPPING TOOL!

If you have any other useful tricks we might not all know about already, leave them in a comment...

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