You went to install the screenshot tool everyone at work uses, and IT blocked the extension. Or the admin console never approved it. Or you are on a locked-down machine and the browser store is greyed out. Meanwhile someone is waiting for you to point at the broken button and say what is wrong with it.
You do not need the extension. You can capture a screenshot, mark the exact spot, add your comment, and send a link the receiver can act on, all inside a single browser tab. No download, no admin approval, no signup. Here is how.
Why the extension wall keeps happening
Browser extensions get deep permission to read and change pages, so IT teams gate them hard. That is reasonable from a security standpoint, and it is also why a browser-based capture flow sidesteps the problem entirely. A tab is just a tab. There is nothing to approve. If your reviewers keep running into the same block when IT restricts extensions, this approach works for them too, because they never install anything either.
Capture the screen from a tab
Open a new review and click Capture screen. The browser prompts you to share a window, a tab, or your whole screen. Pick the one you want and the current frame is drawn to a canvas. That is your screenshot.
You can drag a rectangle to crop it down to just the part that matters, or keep the full frame. Cropping is the one image edit here, and it does more work than people expect. A tight crop around the misaligned form field tells the receiver where to look before they read a single word. If you are sending this to a developer or an agent, what you crop in and out changes how fast they find the element.
Mark the exact spot without drawing arrows
Here is where the workflow differs from a classic annotation tool, and why it holds up better. Instead of scribbling a red arrow that a receiver has to interpret, you drop numbered pins on the screenshot. Each pin points at a specific spot, and the number ties it to a comment. Pin 1 on the header, pin 2 on the misaligned button, pin 3 on the footer link that goes nowhere.
Numbered pins do something an arrow cannot: they impose order. When you want the developer to read the fix for the header before the fix for the footer, the pin numbers set that sequence. The receiver works down the list instead of guessing which annotation you meant first.
This is the core of how you annotate a screenshot without a drawing canvas: the still stays clean, the pins mark position, and the words carry the meaning. Nothing gets buried under overlapping boxes and marker strokes.
Add the comment by typing or talking
Each pin gets a comment. Type it, or click the mic and dictate it using the browser's built-in speech recognition. Dictation works in Chrome and Edge. On Firefox you type instead. Talking through a screen is faster than writing when you have three or four things to say about one view, because you describe what you see as you look at it.
Say what is wrong and what it should be. "The Save button is 8px too low and misaligned with Cancel; align both to the same baseline" beats "button looks off." A vague note bounces back with a question. A specific one gets fixed.
You can also add free-floating comments with no screenshot at all, for the general note that does not belong to one spot on the page.
Publish and share what the receiver can use
Click Publish. The review saves and gets a short public URL like /r/your-slug. Anyone with that link can open it in a browser and read every pin and comment. No login on their end, no app.
The same review is available in more than one shape, so the link fits whoever receives it:
| Receiver | What they open |
|---|---|
| Client or teammate | The public link, or a PDF or Word export |
| Developer | The public link with pins and comments in order |
| AI coding agent | Clean markdown at /r/your-slug/markdown |
People with the link can post a comment on any item, and you can mark each one resolved as it gets handled. That gives you a light way to close out feedback without a bug tracker and its whole workflow.
You did not need an account either
You can publish the whole thing with no account. An anonymous review is kept for 30 days, and if you sign in later with Google or an emailed magic link, it claims the review permanently. So the extension block that stopped you five minutes ago costs you nothing here. No install, no approval, no signup, and Cobalt Capture is free to use.
Next time IT greys out the store, skip the request ticket. Open a tab, capture the screen, drop your pins, and send the link.