A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

If you have ever tried to explain computer configuration or processes to someone over the phone, you know the process can be quite frustrating. You are never quite sure if the person on the other end is looking at the same thing on their screen that you are.

A quick way to ease this predicament is to write up your instructions and include pictures. Word, in conjunction with Windows, makes this quite easy. Try this the next time you are faced with this task:

1. On your computer, walk through the steps you want to explain.
2. At appropriate times, capture the entire screen or a single dialog box to the Clipboard. (You do this by pressing the Print Screen key to capture the entire screen, or Alt+Print Screen to capture the active window or dialog box. This works in both Windows XP and Vista.)
3. Paste the captured screen information into Word by pressing Ctrl+V.
4. Add any explanatory text necessary.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 until you are finished.
6. Save your document.

At this point you can e-mail the document to the remote site, or you can transmit it in some other way, such as printing or by disk.