This Mac tip is provided by Mark Greentree and was originally posted on Mark’s blog – Everyday Mac Support. For more of Mark’s tips visit his site, follow him on Twitter, or browse his archive of posts here.
How To: Screenshots Via The Keyboard In Mac OS X Lion
Have you ever wanted to capture your MAC’s screen to send it to a friend, tech support person, or just for your own memory.
Well you can by using keystrokes.
The first and most common keystroke is:
Upon pressing Command-Shift-3 you will hear a shutter clicking sound similar to what you would hear when you take a photo with a traditional camera.
This keystroke will take a photo of your entire screen from edge to edge.
The associated file will be saved by default to your desktop. You can change the save file destination by using a Terminal command.
The second most commonly used Keystroke is:
Upon pressing Command-Shift-4 you will be presented with a crosshair and co-ordinates of your mouse pointer location. You can now navigate anywhere on your screen with your mouse and select a set portion of your screen by simply clicking and dragging until you reach your desired selection. Once the selection is made the camera shutter click will occur and you will find the associated file on your desktop. Should you wish to cancel the selection simply click the escape key on your keyboard.
Moving on now from the two most common keystrokes you can also do the following to obtain more control over your screenshot capturing needs.
After pressing Command-Shift-4 if you then click the space bar you will see a camera icon appear and you can then move your pointer to the different windows which are open on your computer and upon mouse clicking your selected window will be captured and saved to your desktop.
By pressing Command-Control-Shift-3 you will be able to take your standard screenshot however your screenshot will also be added to your clipboard so you can immediately paste it into any document of your choosing.
Likewise, Command-Control-Shift-4 will also add the screenshot to the clipboard but only the area you have selected by clicking and dragging.
Command-Control-Shift-4, then spacebar, then clicking on a selected open window will also add the screenshot to your clipboard.
GRAB: The Grab application is a utility located in your Applications>Utilities folder which allows the user to perform screenshots with a few additional preferences.
PREVIEW: The Preview application has expanded it’s feature set in Mac OS X Lion to incorporate some screen capture options. When Preview is open simply navigate to File > Take Screen Shot from the menu bar. Within this pop out menu you will see the ability to take a shot of a selection, window, and entire screen.
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