I’ve been a Mac user since 2006 when my stupid PC crashed in the middle of my Capstone exams (library school week-long final, library school equivalent of the thesis paper). I was done. Every day I see people complaining about viruses. I hear that you can’t get them on Macs, and I’m not knowledgeable enough about the technical side of things to know if that’s true or not. I do know that I haven’t encountered anything in the most recent four years that has shut my computer down. Not once. That’s enough for me. But learning OSX, the Mac’s operating system, had a learning curve for me, even for my rudimentary computer needs.
This is a blog that I hope is usually about questions and answers. Here was my question a week ago: “How do I take a screenshot on a Mac?” Taking a screenshot just means taking a picture of your screen. You can save it as a file or just copy and paste it from the clipboard. As with many things Macintosh in the beginning, the answer was 1) very simple; 2) not intuitive at all. Now that I know it, I won’t forget it, but I wouldn’t have gotten it on my own.
Here are your options, which I found in the MacRumors forum.
- Press the command (that’s the key with the apple on it) key, the shift key, and the number 3. You’ll hear a camera sound and there will be a file of the image saved on your desktop. If you have a cluttered desktop like mine it might be hard to find, but the file name defaulted to “screenshot.”
- Command key, shift key, and the number 4 key. Then you can actually define the area of the screen that you want to take a screenshot of. Also saves to the desktop.
If you don’t want to save the files, these two options will send them to the clipboard again, ready for easy pasting:
- Command, control, shift, and the number 3 – It’s the same but with one additional key and it does not save to the desktop
- Command, control, shift, and the number 4 – The same as the previous option, but will let you define an area of the screen instead of taking a screenshot of the entire window.
That’s it! It was driving me nuts and I never would have figured it out on my own. The MacForums are a great resource. I won’t be doing many tech-related posts because I’m a tech idiot, but this was on my mind.
Josh
Strength training for body and mind
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
You forgot one. Whip out your handy dandy iphone, and snap a picture of that bitch. Then upload it back up to your mac, and viola, you just did a screenshot of your mac.
Use the built-in Grab app. You can a pic of the whole screen, a window, or just part of a window. Just open the app and the one you want from the “capture” menu. Then drag or click (as appropriate) and save.
This is what I use on my tried and true PowerMac G3.
Very simple app to use.
I got in on the beta for Snag-It, which is what I use on Windows, and I much prefer that to the standard screen capture apps. It costs a little (which was the advantage of being in the beta), but lets you do some quick edits in place such as adding callouts, annotations, or doing crops and such.
Don’t forget, after you press the Command-Shift-4 or the Command-Control-Shift-4, you can hit the space bar. This will give you a camera icon that will intelligently snap windows or other regions such as open menus. Enjoy!
Hey Josh! You are absolutely right! A lot of the stuff on a make is simple to use but you have to go hunting for the solution. When I got my make last year I came across this site: http://www.myfirstmac.com. It’s been like my Mac Bible. I hope you find it useful too.
OOPS! That should have read “on Mac”.
Forgot to add, you can also go to a finder window and the help tab (or press ⌘? to open the help viewer). Type in what you’re looking for and get instructions.
Oh, and if you’re in Firefox, the same key combination opens Firefox help.