Naturally you have seen the awesome Motorola DROID screenshots we have taken for our user guides and you are wondering, "How did they do that?"

The DROID runs on Android 2.0 and as of now, no applications are available that allow for on-device screenshots. This guide will provide you with the software you need and show you how to get stunning screen captures from your Motorola DROID.

Three separate pieces of software are required and must be installed in a Windows environment:

1. USB Drivers for the DROID
2. The Android software development kit (SDK)
3. The Java SE software development kit (SDK)

Once your downloads are complete, a few steps are needed to get things ready.

On your computer:

1. Extract the USB drivers to a folder on your desktop
2. Extract the Google Android SDK to a folder on your desktop
3. Install the the Java SE SDK

On the DROID:

1. Tap the upward pointing arrow to get to the app menu (figure 1)
2. Tap on the Settings icon
3. Tap on Applications
4. Tap on Development
5. Check the box for USB debugging

Now you're ready to get started.

1. Plug your DROID into your computer via USB and Windows will attempt to install all of the drivers; one of the drivers will not be found and thus you must proceed to Device Manager in your Control Panel and find the device that is denoted by a yellow icon named the Motorola A855
2. Right-click on the A855 listing and select properties; simply instruct Windows to update/install the driver for this device and when asked, browse to the folder on your desktop where you extracted the USB drivers earlier
3. Browse to the Android SDK folder you extracted to your desktop and double-click SDK Setup.exe to start the program
4. Once the application has launched you will be presented with a window as shown above (figure 2)
5. Click on the Refresh button so the application can update its list of operating system SDKs available from Google
6. Check the box next to the URL that is shown in the main application window (figure 2); you are now presented with a list of Android SDK's and Google API's available for installation -- it is recommended that you select all available packages for maximum compatibility
7. Once the files have been downloaded, exit the application
8. Browse to the Tools folder, which is inside the Android SDK folder you extracted to your desktop
9. Double click on DDMS.BAT to execute the Dalvik Debug Monitor
10. The application will launch with a DOS command window and eventually a Windows based application will open -- click on your handset once it appears to make sure it is selected
11. Click on the Device menu and select Screen Capture or use the CTRL-S key combo
12. The capture now appears on your computer screen
13. We recommend that you click on the Copy button and paste the screenshot into your image editor of choice (Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop, etc) -- the reason for this is that there is a known bug that does not carry over the colors of the actual screenshot inside the capture utility

Voilà! You now have a stunning capture of your Motorola DROID's screen.

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