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As more and more Chromebooks hit the market as convertibles, more users are spending time in tablet mode on their Chromebooks. There are some real needs for Chromebooks when it comes to tablet mode, but we’ll address those in another post. For now, a feature thought to only be in development up to this point looks to be deployed and working on every Chromebook I’ve tested so far: Android-like tablet mode screenshots.
We’ve seen commits around this feature and just yesterday saw a story about the coming feature on XDA. Out of curiosity, I figured I’d give it a try and it worked! So I grabbed every Chromebook I had around and it worked on everything I tried. Even on devices like the ASUS Flip C101 that is still on Chrome OS 60, the key combo worked to grab a screenshot while in tablet mode.
Here’s how to screenshot on a Chromebook tablet
If you are an Android user, this won’t come as much of a surprise. All you need to do to capture your screen is push Volume Down + Power at the same time. You’ll have to get your hands in just the right position to pull it off, but once you figure out your go-to clutch, it is fairly simple.
One thing to remember: Chromebooks still don’t rotate the volume based on the orientation of the device. Dumb, I know, but it’s not a thing right now. So, you need to figure out which side of the volume rocker is up and which side is down before hitting the combo.
Once you’ve identified the Volume Down button, just hit that and the power key simultaneously. Simple and effective, just like we like it.
