Capturing a Bitmap with the Bitmap Tool

  1. Start the application in which you want to capture bitmaps and set up the window or area to capture.
  2. Start the Bitmap Tool.
  3. If you want to change the current behavior of the tool window, click Capture > Hide Window on Capture. By default, the tool window is hidden during capture.
  4. Choose a window or screen area to capture:
    Window
    Choose Capture > Window. Click the window you want to capture.
    Client area
    Choose Capture > Client Area. Click the client area you want to capture.
    Selected rectangular area
    Choose Capture > Rectangle.
    1. Move the mouse cursor to desired location to begin capture.

    2. While pressing and holding the left mouse button, drag the mouse to outline a rectangle, and then release the mouse button to capture it. During outlining, the size of the rectangle is shown in pixels.

    Desktop
    Click Capture > Desktop.

    The Bitmap Tool creates a new MDI child window containing the newly captured bitmap. The title bar reads Bitmap - (Untitled) and the status line at the bottom right of the window gives the dimensions of the bitmap (height by width), and the number of colors.

  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to capture another bitmap. Alternatively, open an existing bitmap file.
  6. Save the bitmap.

    Now you are ready to compare the two bitmaps or create a mask for the baseline bitmap.

The Open Agent and Classic Agent capture bitmaps in different color depths. By default, the Open Agent captures bitmaps using the current desktop settings for color depth. The Classic Agent captures bitmaps as 24-bit images. If you create a mask file for the captured bitmap using the Bitmap tool, the mask file is saved as a 24-bit bitmap. If the bitmap mask file does not have the same color depth as the bitmap that you capture, an error occurs. To ensure that VerifyBitmap functions do not fail due to different color-depth settings between the captured image and the mask image, ensure that the bitmaps have the same color depth.