ShareX — The Complete Guide: Free Screenshots, Annotation and Screen Recording for Engineers
ShareX is an open-source tool (GPLv3) for Windows that captures and records the screen. For engineers it saves time when reporting software issues, preparing work instructions and sending part of a drawing with clear markings.
ShareX
ShareX team
Screenshots and screen recording for Windows — annotate with arrows and labels, and extract text with OCR.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Flexible capture — a region, a window, the full screen or a long scrolling page.
- Annotation editor — arrows, boxes, text, step numbers and blurring of sensitive details.
- Recording — a video or short GIF showing a process in software.
- OCR — copying text out of an image or a scan.
- Screen tools — a pixel ruler and a colour picker.
A working tip
Set a hotkey that captures a region and opens the annotation editor immediately, and choose a save folder by month. You can turn off automatic upload to the internet, so captures stay on your computer only.
Related tools
For long recordings and streaming — OBS Studio. For advanced image editing — GIMP. For notes on PDFs — Xournal++.
OBS Studio
OBS Project
Screen recording and streaming — software tutorials, model walkthroughs and recorded lectures in high quality.
Get it from the vendor
GIMP
GIMP team
Advanced image editing — site photos, perspective correction, marking defects and preparing images for reports.
Get it from the vendor
Xournal++
Xournal++ team
Handwriting and PDF annotation with a stylus — markups on drawings, lecture notes and problem solving.
Get it from the vendor
Inkscape
Inkscape project
Vector graphics editor — schematics, technical illustrations, report figures and SVG, PDF and DXF editing.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
ShareX replaces several paid tools with one free, fast tool that is always a hotkey away.