To add a note to a screenshot, put a short piece of text right next to the thing it’s about, on a colored background so it reads against the screenshot. On a Mac, use Markup (click the thumbnail after taking the screenshot, or open it in Preview): the Text tool adds a text box, and the Shapes menu has a speech balloon and filled rectangles to put behind it. On Windows, Snipping Tool’s stable editor has no text tool, so choose Edit with Paint and use Paint’s text tool. Neither has a sticky note as such. In hypershot, press N for a sticky note that grows as you type, or T for a text label with a built-in box style.
The built-in way
On a Mac:
- Open the screenshot in Markup.
- Click the Text tool, type your note, and drag the text box where you want it. Text Style sets the font, size and color.
- For a callout look, add a shape from Shapes: the speech balloon, or a rectangle with a Fill Color. Place it behind the text.
- Shape Style can add a shadow to the shape.
That’s a respectable callout, and it’s free. The limits: the note and its background are separate objects, so moving the callout means moving both, and the shape doesn’t grow when you add a line of text. In Preview, the annotations are flattened when you save the image, so you can’t edit the wording later.
On Windows, Snipping Tool’s editor has a pen, a highlighter, shapes and emoji, but in its stable release no way to type text. (A text tool has been in testing with Windows Insiders since late 2025, so a recent build may have one.) The route today:
- In Snipping Tool, choose Edit with Paint.
- Draw a filled rectangle where the note goes.
- Pick the text tool, click inside the rectangle, and type.
Once you click away, Paint commits the text to the image, so a typo means undo or retyping it.
Handwriting it with the pen works on either system and is honest about being a quick note. It’s hard to read at small sizes, though.
With hypershot: a sticky note
The Sticky Note tool is a note, not a text box with a shape behind it.
- Capture the screen: ⌘⇧2 on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+3 on Windows for part of it, ⌘⇧W on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+W on Windows for one window.
- In the editor, press N and click where the note should go.
- Type. The text wraps and the note grows taller as you write, so it always fits.
- Click outside or press Escape when you’re done.
It starts in classic sticky-note yellow, and you can pick any color: one for questions, one for bugs, one for approvals, if you’re reviewing someone’s work. You can set the font size and alignment, drag the note anywhere, resize it from its edges and corners, and double-click to change the wording.
With hypershot: a text callout
For a label rather than a note, the Text tool (T) has three styles:
- Standard: plain text.
- Outlined: text with a contrasting outline, readable on any background.
- Box: text inside a colored box. The text color adjusts to the box color by itself, so a dark box gets light text and a light box gets dark text.
Text runs from 8 to 300 pt, with bold, italic and underline (⌘B, ⌘I, ⌘U on a Mac; Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U on Windows), alignment, and an optional drop shadow. Press Enter for a new line.
Pair either one with an arrow (A) from the note to the thing it’s about, and the reader knows exactly what you mean. Everything stays editable: the capture is saved as a .hypercapture file, so you can reopen it next week and reword the note.
Sticky note or text label?
- A comment, question or piece of feedback → sticky note. It looks like a comment, so nobody mistakes it for part of the UI.
- A name for a part of the screen (“Save button”, “Step 2 happens here”) → text, in Box or Outlined style.
- Steps in an order → numbered steps with the Counter tool (C), with the explanation in your message.
Tips
- Keep notes short. One or two lines. If it needs a paragraph, it belongs in the message, not the image.
- Put the note in empty space, not over the content, and point to the content with an arrow.
For the rest of the annotation tools, see how to annotate a screenshot.