---
title: "Screen Captures May Not Make Sense"
date: 2009-07-30
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# Screen Captures May Not Make Sense

[Paul Masalsky argues](http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/07/23/do-screen-captures-still-make-sense/) that screen captures in documentation introduce more trouble than they're worth. Localization is the main difficulty. Another is size and the fact that many times the screenshots duplicate what the user already sees in the interface. This post raises a lot of issues that are worth exploring. While I agree that screenshots are problematic, I also think that without them, your documentation's usability goes down. When I watch users perform the steps of my documentation, they look very carefully at the screenshots I include.