The Habit of Hitting Screenshot First
Whenever red text popped up while I was working on my Windows device, I would take a screenshot and paste it into Claude Code. It was fast and easy. But getting to a fix took more back-and-forth than I expected, because the bot kept asking things like 「What does the line above that say?」
A Two-Week Mini Experiment
I sent 12 similar errors as screenshots and another 12 as copied text. The measure was the number of round trips until the problem was solved.
• Sent as a screenshot: 4.2 on average
• Sent as text: 1.6 on average
Screenshots often cut off long lines, or the file path sitting higher up in the scroll got pushed out of view. Text carries all of that information over, so the bot had far less to ask back.
Three Steps to Follow
1. In the terminal, drag with your mouse to select the section with the red text.
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy. If your terminal copies on selection, you can skip this step.
3. Paste it into the chat and add one line like this at the very top.
I just ran this command and got the error below.
Command: python make_cards.py
(paste here, roughly the last 20 lines)
Worth Remembering
• The cause is often higher up rather than at the very bottom, so copy a generous 20 lines or so.
• Use a screenshot only when how the screen looks matters, such as button positions or a broken layout.
• If a line shows a password or key, delete it before pasting.
Pictures are kind to people, and text is kind to bots. Next time red text appears, drag to select before you reach for the screenshot.