Surface Pro 3 - Printing Screen Clipping from OneNote

[DiverAllen]

In my experience, when I take a screen shot using the One Note Screen Clipping and then print it from One Note the quality of the printed version looks what I would call poor. If I use the SnagIt application, paste my screen print into One Note and print it the quality looks what I would call good. Is this the way it is for most people? Is there something I could change so I can just use One Note and get better quality screen shots?

 

[HvT]

A screenshot shall take the pixels as they are. OneNote does the same as SnagIt here. It's not a photo with a camera. If you export the Screen Clipping picture, is it JPG or PNG? What file format do you use with SnagIt?
Screen Clipping in my case does PNG, no quality issue.

 

[DiverAllen]

Just did a little more checking. I did a OneNote screen capture and then a snagit capture of the same screen and pasted it into the same note. When I print this page both captures look the same (after I sized the snagit better) and look pretty crummy. I am printing on a color laser printer and the print looks like the color is bleeding or smeared. When I printed from Snagit the image looked clean.

In answer to your question, if I export the Onenote screen clip it only gives me a choice of .png. If I export from snagit I can choose from many, many formats, .png, .bmp, .pdf, .gif, .tif, etc.

I am uploading a scan of these two prints if this will help.

Allen

 

[HvT]

This does not seem to be related to lossy jpg algorithm. It looks strange.
Word prints the PNGs correctly?
And two times the snagit capture on one OneNote page?
Looks as if the printer has trouble with something. Or the driver.
Strange...

 

[DiverAllen]

This had nothing to do with Word. The single page with 2 screen shots was not a repeat - one screen shot was captured using Onenote and the other was using Snagit - both put onto the same Onenote page and printed. The one page with only one capture was printed from Snagit.

 

[adrians]

I would look at your printer settings (in the print dialog) for any image quality related options. Could be that OneNote by default doesn't print bitmaps with the same kind of settings as Snagit.

 

[DiverAllen]

adrians, perhaps you could suggest where I might find (in the print dialog) settings that say what image quality I would want to choose. I do not see any such options. Thanks.

 

[HvT]

Of course it does not have to do with Word. But Word would probably send your example to the printer using different control codes. Image as an image vs image as a set of print instructions, eg. Depends on your setup and printer capabilities. Sometimes laser printers do strange things when their memory runs out. But two pictures like these on one side shall be no problem nowadays.

If you print both through eg word, you could confirm that the problem is either the printer or software, but make sure that you use same settings in your print driver.

My first impression was that parts of the printer need service, eg fuser. But it is a strange behabiour.

 

[adrians]

adrians, perhaps you could suggest where I might find (in the print dialog) settings that say what image quality I would want to choose. I do not see any such options. Thanks.

These kinds of settings are dependent on the printer you are printing to. On my system, when printing from OneNote 2013, I have a "Preferences" button in the print dialog box. Going inside to set preferences, I see an option to select print quality (Custom/Fast/Standard/High). The custom option allows setting the half-toning as well. On the Effects tab of my Preferences dialog, there are additional options that could affect image quality. I see a check-boxes labeled "Image Optimizer", "Photo Optimizer PRO", "Photo Noise Reduction".

With OneNote MX, the options are more limited, but when I go to print, I have an option to set additional settings, "More settings". Upon choosing this there is an option to set the print quality.