How to take screenshots of PDFs w/ Web capture in Microsoft Edge

Last year, Micorsoft has introduced the Web Capture tool in Microsoft Edge to take full-page screenshots. As the name implies, Web Capture is limited to capturing screenshots of Web Pages, the company has recently expanded it to PDFs as well in Edge browser. The feature is now available in Edge 99 Canary version, here is our first look at it.

While users are familiar with Web Notes in Legacy Edge, the company launched improved Web Capture as a replacement for the same in the new Edge browser based on Chromium.

Web Capture allows capturing visible areas on the screen and the entire page.  Not only that, you can annotate on screenshots and save, share and add them to collections.

When the feature was first announced Microsoft promised to improve it. Now it is available to obtain, edit, annotate and share screenshots taken on PDFs in Edge browser.

Taking screenshots of PDFs using Web Capture in Microsoft Edge

  1. Launch Edge browser
  2. Load a PDF document
  3. Click on the menu icon and select “Web capture
    using Microsoft Edge web Capture on PDFsNote: The option used to be grayed out before, now has been enabled for PDFs by Microsoft in Edge browser. You can also use shortcut Ctrl+Shift+S to mark portion on your screen and either copy or markup the capture.
  4. You can copy the screenshots to the clipboard and paste it into other image editing applications or you can preview and make changes to it and share like you usually do.

The best way of checking Edge’s Web Capture is available for PDFs to you or not is to open a Portable document format file in Edge and look for the Web Capture option in the ellipsis menu.

Chrome on desktop getting Screenshot Editor

After Edge, Chrome has included screenshot-taking ability. Though both features are different, Chrome desktop Screenshots as of now allow you to grab and download screenshots. However, the company is working to bring a screenshot editor.

The Edge web capture and Chrome desktop screenshots are both useful tools that help for picking screengrabs.

Do note, the feature is currently available to a few via controlled rollouts. There is no ETA when it will be available to everyone.

Edge 99 is scheduled to release in the second week of Feb 2022.

In other news related to Edge,

Now let us know how often you’ve used Web Capture in the Microsoft Edge browser? Have you found the new feature useful? Let us know in the comments below.

Venkat Eswarlu

Venkat is an independent technology journalist and the founder of Techdows. He has been covering web browsers, Windows, and software news since 2009. His exclusive scoops on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge features have been cited by Forbes, TechCrunch, Wired, CNET, and other major publications.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *