Screen shots in Leopard

OS X has some great screen grab stuff, but they arent very well documented in help I dont think…

So here you go!

To change to pdf – type this into a terminal window

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
(this works for png, tiff, jpeg too)

If that scares you to death…
maybe download this widget…screenshot plu

or for website this is userful. Its called Paparazzi

also Screen Mimic: Records animations of your desktop to .swf files.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following are keyboard shortcuts for taking screenshots.

Command-Shift-3: Takes a screenshot of the entire screen and saves it as a file on the desktop.

Command-Shift-4: Brings up a crosshair cursor which you can drag to select a specific area. Image is saved as a file on the desktop.

Command-Shift-4:Space:Click on a Window: After

Comand-Shift-4 press the space button the click on a window to take it’s screenshot. The image is then saved as a file on the desktop.

NOTE***: If you add the Ctrl button to any of the above shortcuts, instead of the image being saved to the desktop, the image will be copied to the clipboard.

For the geeks out there like me

Heres the full list of options

usage: screencapture [-icMPmwsWxSCUt] [files]
-c force screen capture to go to the clipboard
-C capture the cursor as well as the screen. only in non-interactive modes
-d display errors to the user graphically
-i capture screen interactively, by selection or window
control key – causes screen shot to go to clipboard
space key – toggle between mouse selection and
window selection modes
escape key – cancels interactive screen shot
-m only capture the main monitor, undefined if -i is set
-M screen capture output will go to a new Mail message
-o in window capture mode, do not capture the shadow of the window
-P screen capture output will open in Preview
-s only allow mouse selection mode
-S in window capture mode, capture the screen not the window
-t
image format to create, default is png (other options include pdf, jpg, tiff and other formats)
-T Take the picture after a delay of , default is 5
-w only allow window selection mode
-W start interaction in window selection mode
-x do not play sounds
files where to save the screen capture, 1 file per screen

Grab / Preview

Grab is a graphical tool provided in OSX to take screenshots. It can be located in Finder under Applications:Utilities:Grab.

The Grab tool can capture a marquee section, a whole window, the whole screen or a timed screen.

Grab’s default file format is TIFF.

Note**: Preview now has a Grab submenu in the File menu with selection, window and timed screen.