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The computing landscape is full of vestigial bits and pieces from the history of computer development. Today we take a peek at the print screen button and answer one reader’s burning question: did it ever actually print the screen and, if so, can it print it once again?

计算领域充满了计算机发展史上的痕迹。 今天，我们看一下“打印屏幕”按钮，并回答一个读者的紧迫问题：它是否曾经真正打印过屏幕，如果可以，它是否可以再次打印出来？

Dear How-To Geek,

亲爱的How-To Geek，

I’m far from a hardcore nerd or computer historian so I hope my question doesn’t come across as goofy. On my computer keyboard there is a button labeled PrtScr which, as I understand it, is for “Print Screen.” When I press it nothing happens. I asked a more knowledgeable friend about it and he told me that when I pressed the print screen button Windows copied the screen at that moment as an image file and placed it on the clipboard. Sure enough if I opened up an image editor and used the paste command the desktop (as it was when I pressed the button) was pasted right into the editor.

我不是一个顽固的书呆子或计算机历史学家，所以我希望我的问题不会像傻瓜一样碰到。 在我的电脑键盘上，有一个标有PrtScr的按钮，据我了解，该按钮用于“打印屏幕”。 当我按下它时，什么也没有发生。 我问了一个知识渊博的朋友，他告诉我，当我按下打印屏幕按钮时，Windows此时将屏幕复制为图像文件并将其放置在剪贴板上。 如果我打开图像编辑器并使用粘贴命令，可以肯定地将桌面(就像按下按钮时一样)直接粘贴到了编辑器中。

My real question though is more of a curiosity. Did the print screen ever literally print the screen to a physical printer? Further, whether it did or didn’t could it print the screen directly to the printer? Perhaps it’s a lazy man’s request, but now that I know I can capture the screen with the printscreen button I want to be even lazier and just print what I see right to the printer without actually cutting pasting, or even opening up the print dialog.

我真正的问题是更多的好奇心。 打印屏幕是否真的将屏幕打印到物理打印机上？ 此外，它是否可以将屏幕直接打印到打印机上？ 也许这是一个懒惰的人的要求，但是现在我知道我可以用printscreen按钮捕获屏幕了，我想变得更懒惰，并且只在打印机上直接打印我看到的内容，而无需实际剪切粘贴或打开打印对话框。

Sincerely,

真诚的

PrtSc Curious

PrtSc好奇

Perish the thought that your question is goofy. We really love answering questions just like the one you posed here; curious questions about computers asked for the sake of curiosity (with perhaps, as you admit, a dash of laziness to boot). To sate your curiosity immediately, yes the print screen button did in fact print the screen, and yes you can have it perform that same function today.

认为你的问题愚蠢到极了。 我们真的很喜欢回答您在这里提出的问题。 关于计算机的一些好奇的问题是出于好奇(出于您的承认，也许有些懒惰启动)。 要立即满足您的好奇心，是的，事实上，“打印屏幕”按钮确实可以打印屏幕，是的，您今天可以让它执行相同的功能。

Starting in the early 1980s the print screen button (typically labeled in shorthand to fit on the key, such as PrtSc, PrtSccn, or so on) began appearing on personal computers and served as a valuable link between the digital world of the screen and the physical world of paper print outs.

从1980年代初期开始，“打印屏幕”按钮(通常以缩写的形式显示在按键上，例如PrtSc，PrtSccn等)开始出现在个人计算机上，并作为屏幕数字世界和用户之间的宝贵链接。纸张打印输出的物理世界。

In command-line driven operating systems like MS-DOS pressing the print screen button took the text contents of the current screen, pulled from the memory buffer, and dumped them over to the computer’s printer port.

在像MS-DOS这样的命令行驱动的操作系统中，按“打印屏幕”按钮将当前屏幕的文本内容从内存缓冲区中拉出，并将其转储到计算机的打印机端口。

Using the print screen button in such an environment would take the text, seen in the screenshot above, and send it directly to the computer’s printer.

在这样的环境中使用“打印屏幕”按钮将获取上面的屏幕快照中显示的文本，并将其直接发送到计算机的打印机。

You could pull off an even fancier trick by pressing CTRL+PrtSc. With that keyboard shortcut all command output would be simultaneously displayed on the screen and redirected to the printer; thus you could execute a command with a lengthy output (longer than one screen) and as it rolled by on the screen it would also roll off the printer. As you can imagine this technique, in the early days of computing, was invaluable for creating hard copies of command outputs, code, and other on-screen text.

您可以通过按CTRL + PrtSc来获得更出色的技巧。 使用该键盘快捷键，所有命令输出将同时显示在屏幕上，并重定向到打印机。 因此，您可以执行带有较长输出(大于一个屏幕)的命令，并且在屏幕上滚动时，它也会从打印机上滚下来。 可以想象，在计算的早期，这种技术对于创建命令输出，代码和其他屏幕文本的硬拷贝是无价的。

In modern operating systems, however, the need to print exactly what is visible on the screen is greatly diminished. The print screen button no longer defaults to the physical printer but instead captures the screen as a graphic image (typically a bitmap or PNG file). This image resides in the clipboard until, as you discovered, the user pastes it into an image editor or document.

但是，在现代操作系统中，大大减少了精确打印屏幕上可见内容的需求。 打印屏幕按钮不再默认为物理打印机，而是将屏幕捕获为图形图像(通常是位图或PNG文件)。 该图像位于剪贴板中，直到您发现用户将其粘贴到图像编辑器或文档中为止。

Although there are abundant screen capture tools on the market including both those built into operating systems (such as the Windows Snipping Tool) as well as popular third-party tools like Skitch, the option do exactly what you desire to do (send the file directly to the printer with no preview, editing, or other user interaction beyond pressing the print screen key) is a fairly rare trick.

尽管市场上有很多屏幕捕获工具，包括内置在操作系统中的屏幕捕获工具(例如Windows Snipping Tool)以及流行的第三方工具(例如Skitch)，但该选项确实可以实现您想要做的(直接发送文件)在没有预览，编辑或其他用户交互的情况下(不按打印屏幕键)到打印机)是一个相当罕见的技巧。

Fortunately for us rare is not nonexistent and there is in fact a handy little program that has just the feature you’re looking for. Gadwin PrintScreen is a freeware screen capture and printing tool that does exactly what you’re looking for. There’s just a tiny bit of configuration necessary to yield the exact result you’re looking for.

对我们来说幸运的是，稀有并不是不存在的，实际上有一个方便的小程序，它只是您要寻找的功能。 Gadwin PrintScreen是一款免费的屏幕捕获和打印工具，可以完全满足您的需求。 仅需进行一点点配置即可产生您想要的确切结果。

Grab a copy here, run the installer, and you’ll be greeted with the Gadwin interface, as seen below.

在此处获取副本，运行安装程序，您将获得Gadwin界面的欢迎，如下所示。

Click on the gear icon in the lower left of the navigation wheel to access the options menu.

单击导航轮左下方的齿轮图标以访问选项菜单。

In the options menu navigate down to the Post-Capture Actions category. By default most of the options are checked. Uncheck all the options and then check “Send Capture to Printer.” It will automatically default to the default printer on your PC. You can click on the printer name and select the “. . .” button beside it to both change which printer the application uses as well as make minor changes to the printer setup (image orientation, scaling, and so on).

在选项菜单中，向下导航到“捕获后操作”类别。 默认情况下，大多数选项都是选中的。 取消选中所有选项，然后选中“将捕获发送到打印机”。 它会自动默认为PC上的默认打印机。 您可以单击打印机名称，然后选择“。 。 。” 按钮旁边的按钮既可以更改应用程序使用的打印机，也可以对打印机设置进行较小的更改(图像方向，缩放比例等)。

With all the items unchecked but the “Send Capture to Printer” button, any time you press the print screen button from here on out the screen capture will be automatically sent to your selected printer.

除了“发送捕获到打印机”按钮以外的所有项目均未选中，您从此处开始按打印屏幕按钮的任何时间，屏幕捕获都会自动发送到您选择的打印机。

Now, we’ll forewarn you, that while it works exactly as advertised you may not be entirely thrilled with the results. Even with tweaking the print margins, scaling, and other options you shouldn’t expect that you’ll get razor sharp prints that look like the same crisp image you see on the screen.

现在，我们将警告您，尽管它的功能与广告宣传完全一样，但您可能不会完全对结果感到兴奋。 即使调整了打印边距，缩放比例和其他选项，您也不应指望会获得看起来像在屏幕上看到的清晰图像一样的清晰锐利打印效果。

This trick is great for printing a general layout of user interface to scribble notes on but not so great for printing block of text for later reading (a task much better suited for direct printing from your web browser or document editor). None the less it’s a neat little trick and a fun throwback to the early days of personal computing.

此技巧非常适合打印用户界面的一般布局以在其上涂写便笺，但不适用于打印文本块以供以后阅读(这项任务非常适合从Web浏览器或文档编辑器直接打印)。 尽管如此，这是一个巧妙的小技巧，并且可以回溯到个人计算的早期。

Have a pressing tech question big or small? Shoot us an email at ask@howtogeek.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.

有紧迫的技术问题是大还是小？ 向我们发送电子邮件至ask@howtogeek.com，我们将尽力答复。

翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/211661/ask-htg-did-the-print-screen-button-ever-literally-print-the-screen-and-can-it-again/

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