Web capture and annotations in Microsoft Edge Chromium

Web capture is one of the features in Microsoft Edge Chromium that I use a lot, even with dedicated capture application NTWind WinSnap installed on my Lenovo Thinkpad T490.

Over time I have reviewed a couple of screenshot applications on my blog as well.

Web capture and annotations in Microsoft Edge Chromium

Web capture was introduced end Q3 2020, according to the Microsoft Tech Community Article: Introducing web capture for Microsoft Edge. And while I have been a Microsoft Edge user (both pre-Chromium and Chromium-area) this wasn’t a feature that I missed, given the intense use of NTWind WinSnap.

However Web capture in Microsoft Edge Chromium has become an easy to go and natural workflow when I want to capture full-page information from a website. So if you want to use the web capture option, there are three ways:

1. Options Menu
2. Toolbar
3. Keyboard Shortcut

Let me briefly discuss each option in the paragraphs below, after I describe the web capture and annotation process.

The capture and annotation flow

• Start the web capture tool, through one of the options;
• An overlay opens and gives you capture options:
  • free select;
  • full page;
• The capture is presented in the overlay and you can do your annotations now;
  • Draw
  • Erase
• When the annotations are completed you can select your distribution option:
  • Share
  • Copy
  • Save
  • Close

When selecting the drawing option I see the same menu structure of the Microsoft Whiteboard App that I discussed in the MURAL review a little while ago. It has a basic feature set but it works. 🙂

Share triggers the Windows 10 UWP sharing menu. Unfortunately not all the Microsoft Office apps (Outlook especially) can make use of that menu. So copy and save are the web capture options I use.

Web capture in Microsoft Edge Chromium options menu

The options menu in Microsoft Edge Chromium is in the upper right corner, under the three bullets. When the option menu folds out, you can find it in the third section of options, a row below the print command.

You simply click on the option and you will start the web capture process or flow.

Toolbar with capture button in Microsoft Edge chromium

The option I use most is enabling the web capture button in the toolbar of Microsoft Edge.  In order to enable that button you need to go into:

• Option Menu
• Settings
• Appearance
• Customize Toolbar
• Show web capture button

Click on the slider to switch the button on. Same work flow of web capturing but simply one click less. 🙂

Set a Keyboard shortcut to capture

While this third route works well, it is the one I don’t use. For me a keyboard shortcut should be done with one hand and two keys.

This is a three-key shortcut that I can do one handed on the Microsoft Sculpt Bluetooth keyboard, but placing the three fingers and save time (be productive) doesn’t work for me. Please not it is my personal opinion and others might see the keyboard shortcut as the preferred usage flow.

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

Capturing screenshots, making annotations and sharing this is a very important to me, as part of the information flow, knowledge sharing and problem solving in personal and corporate life. Differently said it helps me to increase productivity and be more engaged.

However you need the right software tools for such a working style.

For me Microsoft OneNote and the OneNote Web Clipper are part of building that knowledge base or track-record. For screenshots and annotations on them I use NTWind WinSnap simply because it is not just limited to the web browser and it is a lightweight piece of software that fits my requirements and can easily work with Microsoft OneDrive or Flickr Pro to store the screen captures.

But when I work from the Microsoft Edge Chromium browser the web capture feature is so easy to use, without switching programs, that I prefer this method more and more often. Taking the full page web captures directly from Edge Chromium feels like a natural work-flow as well.

In the past I’ve reviewed a couple of screenshot- and annotation tools:

• FireShot – Capture full web page screenshots;
• Lightshot – Create screenshots, share via print.sc cloud;
• PDF Annotator 6 review;

All tools have their preferred advantages. Web capture in Microsoft Edge Chromium is my preferred capturing tool in the browser. For all other programs where I need to capture information NTWind WinSnap is my way to go.

Do you use the web capture option in Microsoft Edge Chromium ?

Do you use a screenshot tool ? Please let me know which ones.