A couple of months ago, I wrote about ClipMate, and what I use it for. I had tossed out SnagIt as an alternative screenshot capturing tool. There was also a comment on the post from ads, who suggested looking at SnagIt. As I mentioned in my comments on that post, I had tried SnagIt quite some time ago (at the same time I was initially test driving ClipMate), and although I had liked it, I couldn’t justify buying both programs. ClipMate won, back then.

Now, I’ve been playing with SnagIt for the past few weeks. You may have noticed that some of my images in recent posts have sported interesting borders, e.g.,

Yup, that’s me playing with SnagIt.

Screen Capturing, Plus

So, what is SnagIt? Well, It’s not the same thing as ClipMate, that’s for sure. One of the things that I use ClipMate for is to keep track of everything I’ve clipped (say, in the last week). That way, after I’ve clipped an image, or a screenshot, or some text, or a URL, I can go back to ClipMate and find it again, even if I’ve done some other copying in the interim. It’s a serious clipboard manager.

In addition, I use ClipMate for manipulating text that I’ve clipped, e.g., remove trailing carriage returns. Remove >>> things at the front of forwarded email jokes, etc. I’ve even used it to take a full block of text and format it with carriage returns at a specific column. In addition, you can fix spelling errors in text, etc. etc. It rocks for dealing with text after you’ve copied it.

On the graphics side, I’ve only ever used ClipMate to take a snapshot of a specific part of the screen (with a hotkey trigger), which I then export as an image, to be dealt with in some other program. Or, I just take the snapshot and plug it straight away into my EverNote database. This actually, is the main thing I use ClipMate for, in addition to the text stuff I’ve just discussed. But other than exporting an image, there’s not really much you can *do* with the screenshots.

This is where SnagIt excels. It doesn’t have a memory for clips like ClipMate does. Nor can it do text manipulation. However, when it comes time to grabbing something graphical from your computer, or modifying/annotating an image, SnagIt does this in spades.

How Can I Snag? Let Me Count the Ways

SnagIt has a multitude of ways to capture images. I recall reading somewhere that there are over 60 ways to capture an image with SnagIt. I’m not going to try and count all the permutations and combinations, but here are the major categories of capture:

• Region (what I use in ClipMate)
• Window (you can do this reasonably well with just the Alt+PrintScreen in Windows)
• Full screen (imaging just the regular PrintScreen)
• Scrolling Window
• Web Page

And there’s numerous ways of playing with these. Really, too much for me to explore right here. Let’s just say that if there’s something you want to be able to copy from your computer, be it on your (multiple) screens, output from a program, scrolling window, etc. etc., SnagIt has a way for you to capture it.

Spiff Up Your Snapshot

What I really like SnagIt for is modifying or annotating your snapshots after you’ve capture them. A picture is worth a thousand words:

Here, I’ve just taken a screen shot of my entire desktop, then cropped it, and played a little with annotations. I wanted to show you what the menu looked like for capturing options. I’ve added a little callout to point that out to you. In addition, there are stamps available in SnagIt (think ClipArt), and you can download additional ones, like those numbers 1 and 2.

Using SnagIt is very easy. Basically, you first tell SnagIt what kind of capture you want to do. Then hit the big red button. There are also ways to set up hotkeys to make things much quicker. In addition, there’s something about capturing and output profiles, which sounds like ways of saving your favourite settings, but I haven’t got that far yet.

Now, I’m not just pleased with SnagIt because it can help me make better blog posts. I’m actually more impressed with how I can use it to make better walkthroughs for students, and to better highlight screenshots to pass information on to my prof. It has real work-related benefits for me. Really.

Oh, and one of the reasons that I’m really enjoying working with SnagIt is that it (unlike my version of ClipMate) doesn’t mind my multiple monitor setup. So, when I hit the magic hotkeys to take a region capture with SnagIt, I can choose a region on any of my three monitors. ClipMate only lets me play with the primary monitor.

My Money Where My Mouth Is

So, I find myself making another software purchase this month. SnagIt sells for $39.95 US for a single license. However, you might be lucky enough to come across a promotion to bring it down a little. The high end of my sweet spot for software is about $30, so this is not too far out of my budget. And I think that it’s a useful purchase for me.

If you do any kind of screenshot/region capture/snapshots, etc. on a regular basis, I highly recommend that you try out SnagIt. I’m pleased that I can finally put it into my stable, since I’ve liked it since I first saw it years ago.

WishList

There are a couple of things that I’m missing:

1. Scrolling window captures. I have yet to be able to figure these out. SnagIt says that it does them, but I haven’t been able to get them to work. I don’t know if it’s because of the way my system’s laid out, or because I’m an idiot, but I’m having no joy there. Fortunately, it’s not a showstopper for me.
2. Blurring. Why does no one do blurring anymore? I used to use Photo Editor, which came with Microsoft Office (pre-2003) installations. It did a great job of transparency and spot blurring (i.e., only where I want it, not all over). Now, I’ve been using Gimp, and now SnagIt, and I can’t find blurring anywhere. You can blur with some online tools (e.g., Phixr, albeit all over the image), but I miss the spot blurring functionality of Photo Editor. Sigh.

P.S.

Does me buying SnagIt mean that I won’t be using ClipMate anymore? No way! ClipMate still has a quicker “copy region to clipboard” functionality, assuming I’m clipping from my primary screen (which is usually the case). In addition, I like having a record of all my clips, and the text manipulation functionality.

All this means is that I have yet another program running in my taskbar. (Hmmmm, maybe I should do a post on what I have running in my taskbar. Hmmmm.)

I’ve received a request from Jim:

I see you mentioned Clipmate, as I think you did once before. Your software reviews are so thoughtful. Can you write up some of your thoughts around Clipmate? I have been looking into demoing it, but since it is buy-ware, I’m hesitant to pull the trigger unless there is some proven utility over EN’s Universal Clipper. Itseems very developed and feature rich, but are all those things very useful. What’s the story say you?

Interesting question Jim, glad you asked. Here are my two cents on ClipMate. Keep in mind that anything I say here is influenced by the fact that I’ve been using ClipMate for years and it is firmly ingrained into my system. These items are in no particular order:

Long on Functionality, Short on Looks

It’s ugly. Forgive me, but it’s true. The UI is old and ugly. So ugly that I’m occasionally tempted to replace it with something pretty, web 2.0-y, ajaxy, or anything that wasn’t so damned ugly.

Keep Everything You’ve Ever Copied

• It lets me keep a gazillion clips. Copied something yesterday, like a URL, path, chunk of text, image? Zip through Clipmate to find it and use it again. I cannot tell you how often this has saved my bacon when some other program goes belly up before I can save. Actually, when I’m on a typing roll, I’ll often just copy something I’m working on, say in Blogger, just in case something goes bad.
• I don’t know if you can actually keep everything; I tell Clipmate to just keep the last week’s stuff.
• There’s even a backup functionality, to backup your clipmate database. I don’t bother.
• In addition, you can organize your clips into folders. There’s also something called a “safe”, which lets you have clips that you can’t accidentally delete. I thinking that you could put sensitive things there. I was using the safe for keeping html tables for use with EverNote, but I lost them on a computer refresh and haven’t bothered putting them back.

Hot Hot Hot

It lets me assign a hotkey for “regions screen capture”. As soon as I hit F11 (or whatever key combination you like), I get a cross-hairs on my primary monitor, which I use to select a rectangle. That clip gets tucked into Clipmate, for pasting now, or later. I wish it would let me use the crosshairs on my secondary monitor too, but the Universal Clipper doesn’t either, so maybe it’s got something to do with the deeper meaning of screen clipping.

Use the Magic Hat to Clean Up

The magic hat is an icon that lets me clean up text. For example, let’s say I copy something out of a forwarded forwarded forwarded email. You know, the ones with all the > or | marks at the beginning of each line? Well, Clipmate will let you clean up garbage like that in text. Here’s a look at the options you can play with for cleaning up text:

Export, eh

It lets me export clips. For example, let’s say I take a bunch of screenshots for a particular blog post. In the Clipmate Explorer, I select the appropriate items, then export them. Each clip gets to be its own jpg. I could also export text clips, but I’ve never found that particularly useful.

Miscellaneous Functionality That I Do Use

• Something called Power Paste is pretty cool. Turn it on, then you can paste a bunch of things from the list, one after the other.
• There’s also the ability to glue clips together.
• Spellcheck when you’re looking at text. In fact, you can clip text, then edit it, before pasting it somewhere else.
• You can print clips, excellent for keeping track of screenshots of settings, etc. You can format the header/footer, etc. of the clip

Everything And the Kitchen Sink

The problem I see with clipmate, besides the fact that I think it’s ugly, is that there is just too much functionality. It tries to be (and does, very well, I think) everything to everbody. I figure I only use something like 25% of its feature set. It can be a little daunting to look at when you first open it. For example, I’ve never been able to figure out the difference between Clipmate Classic view and Clipmate Explorer, except that I prefer the latter. But I don’t know what the former is for. I definitely don’t use half of the menu commands.

My Recommendation?

There are other clipboard tools out there. There are other screenshot capturing tools out there (SnagIt anyone?). There’s even the new Universal Clipper for EverNote users. You need to think about what kind of functionality you need.

A few months ago, I looked around for other clipping tools, in the open source area. I tried out a few that seemed to do some things, but nothing did everything that Clipmate would do for me. I can’t remember which one feature ClipMate had that nobody else beat, but it was either the hotkey screen region capture, or the clean up text, or the export to file, or the printing. Well, you get the idea. I was willing to pay for ClipMate because I *need* to have these functionalities. (This is also why I won’t switch to the Universal Clipper, because it only does the one thing, not the rest).

So, think about what you need from a clipping utility. If your list matches up with my list above, then ClipMate is for you. If you need less functionality, then you might be able to get away with a freer application.