| Printing the current screen from Datatel UI By this time, anyone who uses the Datatel system knows that the university is moving to a new version of the software that acts as a front-end for Colleague and Benefactor. As the last of the old Wintegrate clients are replaced with the new Datatel UI (User Interface), many people are wondering what happened to Wintegrate’s convenient icon that printed the open Colleague or Benefactor screen with a single mouse click. This “Print Screen” icon does not exist in the Datatel UI client, so the Office of Information Technology had to find an alternative solution from a third party. Why is additional software required to print the active screen in Windows XP when keyboards have a key that appears to be labeled for exactly this purpose? The key labeled “Print Screen / System Request” is one of those almost vestigial components (like parallel ports, serial ports, and even the floppy drive) that computers still come with despite the fact that most people never use them. The Print Screen key doesn’t even do what it says. At one time, back in the days of the DOS operating system, the key did in fact send a copy of the data on your screen to the printer. If you try to print using the Print Screen button on your keyboard using Windows XP, it doesn’t seem to do anything. Actually, the Print Screen key does do something, but not what you would expect given its label. When you press the Print Screen key in Windows, the operating system takes a snapshot of your current screen and saves it to the Windows clipboard. You can then paste the image (using the Edit > Paste command or Ctrl-V) into Microsoft Word, an e-mail message, or your favorite image editing software. With today’s high resolution displays, a snapshot of your entire screen usually captures a lot more than you would like. If you want to capture only the selected Window, press Alt-Print Screen. Once you paste the image into your application of choice, you can send it to the printer using the program’s print icon (or Ctrl-P). This routine of capture, paste, print can be inconvenient when it comes to Datatel. Most Datatel printing is done by selecting a report to print. The UI client does not have a menu item or icon for sending only the current screen to your printer. Using the Print Screen key, pasting into another program, and then selecting the printer icon in that program will work; but the PrintNow program that IT has bundled with the UI client simplifies the routine. PrintNow is a free program developed by the Ziff-Davis company that makes the Print Screen key function as it did in the days of DOS. Press the Print Screen key and an image of your display is sent to your printer. Press Alt-Print Screen and an image of the selected window or program is sent to the printer. It isn’t perfect. If you want to print an entire record in Datatel, you must make sure the entire record is visible by increasing the size of the window. If you need to take screen shots to paste into other applications, PrintNow can be temporarily disabled. Locate the white “PN” icon located in the Windows System Tray which is visible in the lower right corner of your screen. You may need to click the arrow to show hidden icons. Right-click on the PN icon and remove the check next to “Screen Capture Enabled.” When you uncheck this feature, you are enabling the normal Windows screen capture function that saves the captured screen to the Windows clipboard. If you repeat the steps, it will reenable PrintNow. For more information on Datatel UI, or to sign up for Datatel training, visit http://www.american.edu/ui. |
