Taking screenshots in Mac OS X

Here is a quick FYI prompted by some recent emails we’ve received from readers:

In Mac OS X Tiger, use these shortcuts to take pictures of the screen:

⌘-Shift-3 (Command-Shift-3): Take a picture of the entire screen and save as a file
⌘-Control-Shift-3 (Command-Control-Shift-3): Take a picture of the entire screen and copy to the clipboard

⌘-Shift-4 (Command-Shift-4): Take a picture of the dragged area and save as a file
⌘-Control-Shift-4 (Command-Control-Shift-4): Capture dragged area and copy to the clipboard

⌘-Shift-4 then Space bar (Command-Shift-4 then Space bar): Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save as a file
⌘-Control-Shift-4 then Space bar (Command-Control-Shift-4 then Space bar): Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to the clipboard

By default, Mac OS X Tiger saves screenshots as .png files to the Desktop.

You can also take pictures of the screen using the Grab application (in the Utilities folder).

Use Bruce Phillips’ free Screenshot Settings 1.1 to change default location and file formats (bmp. gif, jp2, jpg, pdf, pict, png, psd, sgi, tga, tif) of your screenshots.

MacDailyNews Note: To record video and audio from the Mac’s screen, we use iShowU (US$20) from shinywhitebox.

[UPDATE: 1:54pm EDT: Revised default format to .png and added “Command” in parenthesis.]

45 Comments

  1. Fugly,

    You forgot a couple things.

    “1.Buy or borrow digital camera to take picture of screen.
    2.Install associated software to manipulate image.
    3.Hold a camera up to your screen and take a picture.
    4.Download pictures to computer.

    Brilliant!

    Or, you can take a shot while in front of your screen…thus “screenshot”.

    I’m a genius.

    Microsoft is far better than Mac.”

    Definitely far better than doing it on a Mac.

  2. One of the fastest ways to capture an entire webpage (like this one) in Safari is to do the obvious!!

    Go up to Safari’s menu item “File” >”Print” and then save as a PDF. It saves the entire page. Granted, it’s NOT one obnoxiously long image file but is divided into more logical and easily manageable PDF pages.

    By the way, check out the other new PDF options!

  3. i HATE THE sCREENShOOTiNg Of a Mac.

    Who was the idiot who came up with using 3 and 4? I mean seriously!! Why not map it to a print button… essentially you’re printing the screen to a file.

    This is one area where Windows does it right. Whole screen you print screen. Want an alternative way and only want the front window, press alt. If I were MS, I’d add ctrl-Print SCreen, so you could control exactly what you want to screen shoot.

    What does 3 do? What does 4 do? I can never remember which is which. If anything, it would be better on the same number… but use alt (Alternative).

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