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How to make a step-by-step guide with screenshots

Updated 23 October 2026 · We make ClickTrek; this guide also covers the manual method.

With ClickTrek (about 2 minutes)

1. Install ClickTrek from the Chrome Web Store and pin it to the toolbar.
2. Open the website where the task starts.
3. Click the ClickTrek icon, then Start Recording.
4. Do the task as you normally would. Each click gets a numbered badge and a highlight box, and the side panel lists the steps. If a link opens the next page, recording continues there.
5. Click Finish. The Review capture page opens.
6. Check each page. Add short step labels if you want text with the pictures, hide boxes you don't need, and delete any page that shouldn't be shared.
7. Download the PNG (one page) or the .zip of numbered PNGs (several pages) and paste them into your document, ticket or message.

An exported page: each click has a numbered badge and a box around the element that was clicked.

By hand (fine for three or four steps)

1. Write the steps as a numbered list first, one action per step.
2. Take a screenshot at each step: Win+Shift+S on Windows, Cmd+Shift+4 on a Mac.
3. Paste each screenshot under its step in Google Docs, Word or your wiki, and draw a box or arrow on the thing to click.

This works for short guides. Beyond a handful of steps it gets slow: every screenshot needs cropping and marking, inserting a step means renumbering, and a changed screen means redoing the pictures. That is the work a click recorder does for you.

Tips for a guide people can follow

• One action per step. One click, one picture, one sentence.
• Start from a page everyone can reach, such as the home page or a bookmarked link.
• Use test data. Record with a demo account or sample values so no real names, emails or numbers appear.
• Say what the reader should see after an important step ("The Invoices page opens").
• Test it. Give the guide to someone who has never done the task and fix wherever they get stuck.

Making a picture guide for a parent or friend

For someone less confident with computers, pictures with big numbers work better than written instructions. Record the task once on your own computer, keep each step to a single click, and send the images in order, or print them. A numbered badge on each click makes "click the thing with the 3 on it" easy to follow.

Questions