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How do I take a screen shot

8K views 15 replies 8 participants last post by  Vinnie Cappuccino 
#1 ·
Can anyone tell me how to take a screen shot of my Powerbook?
 
#3 ·
It is built in


Press Command, Shift and 3 together at the same time and you'll hear a click sound and you have a Picture #.pdf appear on your desktop. This file is a picture of your entire screen when you took it. If you open the PDF in Preview, you can export it as a jpg, png or gif, or a few other file formats.

There is also Command, Shift and 4, which allows you to select an area to take the picture of, or if you click on a window, it will take the picture of the window.

There is also the application Grab that comes with the system that does the same thing, but allows for timed screenshots.

A positively awesome app for taking screenshots, and movies of what you are doing on screen is Ambrosia Software's Snapz Pro X. Version 2 is coming out soon, and is a complete rewrite and all the beta testers have given it immense praise. However it is shareware and it will cost you some $$ to register it.
 
#4 ·
Built into MacOS since Mulroney was Prime Minister:

Command-Shift-3 Full Screenshot
Command-Shift-4 Crosshair cursor to select an area for screenshot

MacOSX creates PDF files while MacOS9 and earlier creates editable PICT files.

If you need to make animated movies or select some hard-to-grab items (like menus, which might dissapear if you move the cursor) you can look at 3rd party products like Snaps Pro (MacWorld 4-5 star, from Vancouver BC) or perhaps SnapClip (which I'm unfamiliar with).

New Users: the Command key is the key directly beside the spacebar (both sides); it is marked with a cloverleaf (for Command) and on Apple keyboards, an Apple Logo. Some people call it the "Apple Key", (which is not correct, but is at least descriptive). Get used to calling it the Command key, because that's what you'll find in application docs and help files.
 
#8 ·
A far more useful screen shot is the window shot, which is also built in.

Press Command-Shift-4 to get the crosshairs and then press the Spacebar. The crosshairs will become a camera and you will be able to take a shot of one window, one icon in a window, the toolbar, the dock, or one item in the dock.

--PB
 
#10 ·
Philistines...

For screen shots I either:

1. Go to OCAD. Contact one of the more gamine aspiring artists and invite them over for Barbaresco, paté and a session of "sketch my Mac"

2. Hire some CNE silouette artists. Scissors are always nice.

3. If all else fails, carry the monitor over to the photocopier...press copy.

4. Carbon paper.


Ask and ye shall receive.
 
#11 ·
Yet again, another hidden Apple gem that makes so much sense for business!

Just today I was presenting to a customer and found myself stumbling through a shareware version of "Hardcopy" for Windows XP in order to capture screenshots to disk. It makes total sense for this utility to be native to a business focused OS.

And to top it off, my customer was using W98 which meant that my USB Flashdrive required a driverthat i didn't have ..............WinBlows
 
#12 ·
it was asked:
Why would people write Programs for the stuff the OS already Does!!

Screen shots can be taken in the OS yes, but Snapz Pro X and other utilities like it offer more flexibility and features such as taking quicktime movies of stuff you are doing and making screens of menus a whole lot easier to take.

--PB
 
#13 ·
Just to give the Devil his due, you can take screen shots in Windoze as well - it's just clunkier. When you have the screen you want, press the "print screen" (or sometimes "prt scr") key. That puts a screen dump on the clipboard. Open a graphics program and choose Paste.

Needless to say, there are many third-party Windoze utilities that are marginally less clunky, but I have yet to see one that approaches the usefullness of the standard Mac built-in screen shot utility, let alone the more refined 3rd-party ones like Snapz Pro.

Cheers :-> Bill
 
#14 ·
" ... built into MacOS since Mulroney was Prime Minister:
Since long before that - at least the basic Command-Shift-3 worked in System 6. Possibly even farther back, but that was before my time. ..."

Brian led the Conservatives to the largest majority in Canadian History in September 1984, 8 months after the Apple Macintosh debut during the SuperBowl (January 24 1984, a glorious Oakland Raiders victory over the Washington Redskins.).

If you were an early adopter and wrote of the victory on your new Mac, you would be using System 1.1 (introduced May 5 1984). System 6 would be introduced during Brian's second term (re-elected 1988).
 
#15 ·
Brian led the Conservatives to the largest majority in Canadian History in September 1984, 8 months after the Apple Macintosh debut during the SuperBowl (January 24 1984, a glorious Oakland Raiders victory over the Washington Redskins.).
You're right. I guess it seemed more recent because, like all great disasters, it looms large in memory.

Cheers :-> Bill
 
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