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Aug 16 / innocent114

Q&A: How Do I Take A Screen Shot on My Mac?

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Question:

I have something on my computer that I would like to save or take a picture of, how do I do this on my Mac?

Answer:

Well this is commonly referred to as taking screenshot or screen capture and there are a few easy ways to do this on your Mac. There are the following shortcuts:

Shortcuts for Screen Captures:

  • Command+Shift+3 – Takes a screen capture of your entire screen. Saves screen capture as file to your desktop automatically.
  • Command+Shift+4 – Gives you a crosshair cursor so you can choose which area of the screen you want to capture. Saves screen capture as file (.png) to your desktop automatically.
  • Command+Shift+4 (then press spacebar) - To capture a specific application window
  • Control+Command+Shift+3 (or 4) – Copies the capture into your Clipboard memory, so you can paste it anywhere you want.

      After you are done taking the screen capture it will automatically stop or you can press Press Esc to cancel.

      Apple Screen Capture App:

      There is also a little unknown app on your Mac called, Grab (just search on Mac with Spotlight for it or Navigate to your Mac Utilities folder). Grab is an app on your Mac that also enables you to capture screenshots, but you get a few more options. One option in particular is one that allows you to time your screenshot. Grab performs a countdown to ten seconds to give you time to arrange that “perfect” screen shot. This would be best used if you are navigating to a particular website/screen that has some sort of result that requires an action by the user to be activated (i.e. fireworks upon click of a particular button on their website).

      Grab also has other options that you can find by just playing around with the app.

      Third-Party Screen Capture Apps:

      Of course you also have third-party app options (there’s probably a third-party app option for EVERYTHING). Some which provide more powerful screen capturing solutions. You can use the following apps, some free some paid:

Filed under Mac Tip/How-To, Q&A, Tutorial