Taking Screenshots with Screen Capture in Mac OS X Panther

By Larry Ullman and Marc Liyanage

Screen Capture is part of the Mac OS X Panther operating system, which means that it is available with every application that works with OS X. You can trigger Screen Capture via several keyboard shortcuts.

Don't be confused by the Image Capture program found in the Applications directory. Despite its name, this application does not capture screenshot images. Its actual role is to import images from a digital camera. It can also be used to network and share a digital camera or scanner.

To capture the entire screen, press Command+Shift+3.

To capture part of a screen, press Command+Shift+4.

The keyboard shortcuts for image capturing are listed under Keyboard Shortcuts of the Keyboard & Mouse System Preferences panel.

You can capture a window or object by using this last method; or, follow these steps to get a more precise screenshot:

1. Press Command+Shift+4.

Again, the cursor turns into the cross-hairs icon.

2. Press the spacebar.

The cursor turns into a camera icon.

3. Move the camera cursor over the window or object that you want to capture.

When you move the cursor over an object, it becomes highlighted.

4. After you highlight the window that you want, click the mouse anywhere on the window or object to take the screenshot.

You can take screenshots of items in the background as long as you can see a piece of them. For example, if you're in Microsoft Word and can see a corner of a Finder window, you can get a screenshot of the whole Finder window by highlighting and taking a shot of just the visible portion.

Here are a couple of things that you should know when using this method:

Screen Capture saves the screenshots as PDFs. No other format options are available. That being said, you can use the Preview application's Export feature (under File) to covert a PDF to a JPG, TIFF, PNG, and more.

The screenshots are automatically saved to your Desktop with such useful names as Picture 1, Picture 2, and so forth.

You cannot capture the cursor.

Unlike digital cameras, which normally allow you to adjust the size of the picture taken in pixels, you cannot change the resolution of shots in Screen Capture. You can adjust the size of your screenshots only by adjusting the resolution of your monitor.

With the Command +Shift+4 shortcut, you can toggle back and forth between a section of the screen and a window by continuing to press the spacebar.

With the Command +Shift+4 shortcut, press Escape to cancel the operation.

If you hold down the Control key while triggering the screenshot utility (using either Command +Shift+3 or Command +Shift+4), the image is sent to the Clipboard and is not saved as a file.

Hold down the Control key to send the captured image to the Clipboard. Then you can paste this image into an e-mail, a document, or an iChat session.

If you'd rather place an image within the document you're working on instead of creating an image as a file on your computer, here's how:

1. In your document, place the cursor where you want the image to go.

2. Toggle over to the application where you'll want to take the screenshot.

3. Capture the image while holding down the Control key.

Holding down the Control key copies the image to the Clipboard. You can use Command +Control+Shift+3 to capture the entire screen or Command +Control+Shift+4 to capture a section of the screen or an entire window.

4. Toggle back to your document.

5. Press Command+V to paste the captured image from the Clipboard into your document.