Mac Kindergarten

Some switchers might miss the key on their keyboard to take a screenshot. Certainly the functionality is not missing. The opposite is true, as we will see.

There are several key combinations we will use to take screenshots. The involve the command and shift key. Please take a look at this, if you are not sure, which keys they are.

One thing about keyboard shortcuts: You don’t need to press the mentioned key combinations at the same time. Just press and hold down the first one, press and hold down the second and finally press the last key.

So command-shift-3 would look, like this:

1) Press and hold down the command key
2) Press and hold down the shift key (while you still hold down the command key)
3) Press the key 3 (while you still hold down the command and shift key)

A screen shot of the entire screen

To take a full-screen screen shot, press command-shift-3. There will be no visual feedback, the screen shot will simply be stored in a file on the Desktop named “Picture 1″.

A screen shot of a part of the screen

Pressing command-shift-4 will give you the ability to select a certain area of the screen for the screen shot.

After you pressed the keys, the mouse cursor turns into a cross hair. Simply drag a rectangle over the desired area, let go of the mouse button and you’ll find a file of the screen shot on your Desktop.

An exact screen shot of a window or widget

To create an exact screenshot of a window (or a Dashboard widget), press command-shift-4 as above. The cursor again turns into a cross hair.

Now press the space bar and the cursor will turn into a photo camera. Move this camera over a window and click it, to grab an exact screenshot of that window.

As said, this also works for Dashboard widgets, here is how:
Display the Dashboard (pressing the F12 key or clicking the icon in the Dock)

Press command-shift-4 followed by the space bar (to bring up the camera) and click on any widget to take a screen shot of it.

Now you know, how we do it a Mac Kindergarten.

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Tags: keyboard, screen shot

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Dashboard, OS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.