Eight screenshot tools to help you save entire Web sites.

This week, I had to make a screenshot of an entire Web site (instead of just what was on my screen). There are a bunch of tools to take care of this, but I quickly realized that most of my old standbys from previous years are out of commission or just woefully out of date.

So I asked the crowd on Twitter for tips, and I decided to turn this results into the Cool Tools of the Week.

Reccommended:

• Screengrab! — This plugin for the Firefox Web browser is the one I ended up using. Once installed, it took me a minute to find the Screengrab icon, which was hiding on the bottom right of my browser window. But then it worked like a charm. (Note: Be sure to save your screenshots as .PNG files, not .JPG. There's a noticeable quality difference.)

If you're curious, here's the beautiful thing I ended up creating with the screenshot, based on Mack Collier's recent blogger-outreach case study.

• Paparazzi - This downloadable Mac program was simple to set up and tremendously easy to use. If I weren't using Firefox, I'd happily use this as my screenshot of choice. 

Not recommended:

• Fireshot - Another Firefox plugin, but I couldn't get this one to work. I was hit with multiple errors and had to uninstall. That said, several people find it fully functional and seem to like it.

Other options (that I couldn't try):

• Screenshot Captor - This one seems nice, but it's for Windows, and I was too lazy to try it on my home PC. I love you guys and all, but....

• The full version of Adobe Reader has a screenshot feature, I've been told, although it was hard to find it in the online feature list. But I did find this cool "share your screen" function that's currently in beta.

• Got a master's degree in computer science and hate not to use it? Try wget. But it hurts my paltry liberal-arts-schooled brain.

• SnagIt - Another bit of Windows software, and it costs money. But there's a 30-day free trial if you want to give it a shot. 

• Irfanview - A feature-rich graphic viewer for Windows. Scans, converts, optimizes, makes slideshows, etc. Seems quite cool.

Big thanks to everyone from Twitter who submitted a suggestion: Jeremy Gordinier, Chris Hoppel, adsmguy, Sue Cline, Jeremy Flint, Len Damico, Ike Pigott, Chris Mitchell, Deontée Gordon, Laura P. Thomas, and Gary Moneysmith.

Comments

[Keith]

I've tried several, but keep coming back to SnagIt.

[Marsha Collier]

I like SnagIt, but for publication use, I really like Corel Capture. It numbers photos and saves automatically in a bunch of file variations and settigs. I keep going back to it. The only problem is you need to have a full copy of Corel Draw (but you can get an older version on eBay)...

[Marc Achtelig]

Maybe good additions to this list are the checklist of criteria for selecting a screen capture tool at http://www.indoition.com/screen-capture-tool-choosing.htm, as well as the list of screen capture tools at http://www.indoition.com/screen-capture-tools-survey.htm.