Run the screen in the HMI editor's simulation, press Alt + Prt Scr, paste into Paint, and save a JPG. Insert the picture into Word at 1:1: a 16 px label prints at 12 pt, while half size drops it to 6 pt, which reads as a caption. Shrink a manual figure only when nothing in it has to be read as an instruction.
A picture of every operator screen belongs in the manual, and the HMI editor will not copy one to the clipboard. The route that works: run the screen in the editor's simulation, press Alt + Prt Scr to capture the active window, paste into Paint, save a JPG, and insert it into Word at full size. The capture lifts the picture off the window itself, so it works even when the editor offers no copy-and-paste for screens. For slides, capturing HMI screens as images for a presentation covers the basics; a manual adds rules about printed text size that a deck never meets, and the worked example below turns those rules into one scale limit you can apply to every figure.
What you need
- The released version of the HMI project, the build that matches the machine as it ships. A figure captured from an older project documents a screen the operator will never see.
- A Windows PC that runs the editor, so the project can run in its simulation mode.
- Paint, which ships with Windows, or any image editor that pastes from the clipboard and saves JPG files.
- Word, or any word processor that sizes pictures in inches or centimeters and exports PDF.
One Windows setting to know before you start: the Print Screen key's behavior can be remapped in Windows settings. If Alt + Prt Scr ever stops dropping an image on the clipboard, check that switch first.
Capture the screen from the simulation
- Open the released project and start its simulation. Navigate to the screen the manual describes.
- Put every indicator, pop-up and alarm banner into the state the operator should see in print, and close anything that should not appear.
- Click the simulation window once. Focus decides what the shortcut captures.
- Press Alt + Prt Scr. Windows copies the active window to the clipboard. Plain Prt Scr copies the whole desktop, editor frame and all, so the Alt form gives the clean figure.
- Open Paint and paste with Ctrl + V.
- If the wrong screen came across, or a dialog was open, fix the state in the simulation and press Alt + Prt Scr again. Each press overwrites the clipboard image, so a retry costs nothing.
Check: the pasted image shows the intended screen and nothing else.
Some runtimes can save the displayed screen straight to a file, which skips Paint entirely. How that export is switched on differs by product; for one example of the settings involved, see configuring JPG image export in an HMI runtime. If you batch-capture that way, plan the file names first so one save cannot overwrite the previous capture; saving HMI trend screen captures without file overwrite covers that naming problem.
Save the image
Save the paste from Paint as a JPG. Name each file for its screen and its place in the manual, a screen name plus the step number it illustrates, and keep the folder beside the Word file. When a screen changes in a later project revision, you reshoot that one image and the update stays small.
Check: reopen the saved JPG and read the smallest label on it. If a label is already hard to read at full size, enlarge that label in the project and recapture. Shrinking the picture inside Word will not restore text the capture never had.
Insert the capture into Word
Place the cursor in the step list beside the instruction that uses the screen, insert the picture, and leave its size at 1:1. Word's picture size fields show the printed size in inches or centimeters, so the scale is readable directly in the tool. Keep the image In Line with Text so it travels with its step, and add a caption that names the screen. The picture is one still frame; the written steps around it carry the procedure.
If full size will not fit the page width, leave the corner handle alone for now and work out the scale limit first, in the example below.
Example: a 16 px panel label printed at half size
The inputs, and where each comes from:
- Label height on the panel: 16 px. Screen typography guidance sets 16 px as the minimum for comfortable body text on a display and equates it to 12 pt.
- The pixel-to-point mapping: Word places 96 px to 1 in on the page, and 1 in holds 72 pt, so 1 px of image height prints at 72 ÷ 96 = 0.75 pt.
- The printed floors, from print typography guidance: body text at least 8 pt, captions and fine print never below 6 pt, thin lines at least 0.25 pt.
The rule in words: printed height in points equals the label's pixel height × 0.75 × the scale applied in Word.
The arithmetic:
- Full size, scale 1: 16 px × 0.75 = 12 pt.
- Half size, scale 0.5: 16 px × 0.75 × 0.5 = 6 pt.
- Hairline check: a 1 px separator line prints at 0.75 pt full size and 0.375 pt at half size, both above the 0.25 pt thin-line floor.
Result: the label that prints at 12 pt from a 1:1 insert falls to 6 pt, the caption floor, once the figure is scaled to half.
Decision: insert manual figures at 1:1. Scale a figure down at most 50%, and only when its smallest label is 16 px or taller and the text reads as a caption. A label that carries an operating step must print at 8 pt or more, so a figure containing such labels never goes past 50%; if the layout needs the figure smaller still, capture a zoomed region of the screen so the labels keep their pixel height.
Recommendation: capture every manual figure from the released project running in simulation, save each screen as its own JPG, and insert it into Word at 1:1. Scale a figure down at most 50%, and only when nothing inside it has to be read as an instruction; figures whose labels carry operating steps stay at full size.
From Word to PDF
Use Word's save-as-PDF or export function when the manual ships as a file. Word also carries a picture-compression setting that can soften images when it saves; if text in the PDF looks softer than the same text in the JPG, switch compression off and export again. Reopen the PDF at 100 percent zoom and read the smallest label on every figure before the file goes out.
Keep the JPG files after the PDF is made. The PDF is the deliverable; the captures are the source images, and a screen change is fixed by reshooting one simulation window and reinserting one picture.
Check the finished manual
- Every figure shows the screen its caption names, captured from the released project.
- Each figure sits beside the instruction step it illustrates.
- Every figure stays within the scale limit from the example, and figures with instruction labels in them sit at 1:1.
- The PDF matches the Word file: same figures, text readable at 100 percent zoom.
One boundary worth keeping: the capture documents the screen, not the machine. If a screen cannot be reproduced in simulation, or a finished figure would differ from what the panel really shows, correct the project before the manual ships.
Questions
Why did Alt + Prt Scr capture the wrong window?
The shortcut copies whichever window had focus at the moment you pressed it. Click the simulation window once, press Alt + Prt Scr again, and inspect the paste. If nothing reaches the clipboard, some laptops route the Print Screen key through the Fn modifier, so hold Fn while pressing, then capture again.
The print shop asked for 300 dpi images. How many pixels does a capture need?
Dpi is pixels per printed inch, so multiply the printed width of the figure by 300. A figure placed 3 in wide needs about 900 px of capture width; at 5 in wide it needs about 1,500 px. A 1:1 insert from a small panel window can fall short of that, so keep such figures small on the page or capture a zoomed region that carries more pixels.
Should manual captures be saved as JPG or PNG?
JPG is the path this workflow uses, and every tool in it saves one. PNG is worth taking when the editor or runtime offers it: PNG stores the image losslessly, so hard text edges and thin lines stay sharp, at the cost of a bigger file. Both formats insert into Word the same way, and the scale limit applies to either.
Planning information, not legal or engineering advice. Rules differ by place: check codes and permits with your local authority and your licensed trades.