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Screenshot From Mac Laptop

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  • Press and hold these three keys together: Shift + Command + 3. This will bring up a thumbnail in the corner of your screen. Click it and edit the screenshot. Wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.
  • Mac screenshots taken in macOS are one of the easiest yet most useful tools MacBook users can have in their arsenal. Whether you're saving something for later or sending a friend something you saw.
  • Using Apowersoft Mac Screenshot. There can be various ways on how to screenshot on a MacBook.

Mac Laptop Screen Repair

What You Need:

  • A Mac or PC
  • The Lightshot application for PC (highly recommend)
  • A positive attitude

Whether it's reporting a technical problem to IT or emailing an image to a friend, screenshots are a part of life. It's pretty easy to do on a Mac, but PC is a different story. I wouldn't say it's difficult, but it's not as intuitive as you'd expect. There are a couple of different ways to take screenshots depending on what you're trying to capture. So, without further ado, here are some helpful tips to get you started:

It's different from Mac OS users who really need to know the ins and outs of how to screenshot on the right laptop. Of course for Windows users, some screenshot applications can be used for free like PC karaoke applications, android emulators, video cutting software, and many other applications.

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

How to take a screenshot of the entire screen

  1. Press shift + command + 3 to take a picture of the entire screenWhether you're showing off your cool Star Wars-themed desktop background or just capturing content, taking a snapshot of the entire screen is pretty straightforward on a Mac. Once you've entered the command, you'll hear a snapshot sound, which indicates that you've successfully taken a picture of the whole screen.
  2. Locate the screenshot (.png file) on your desktopYour screenshot will automatically appear on your desktop. It'll be a .png file named 'Screen Shot' with the date and time.
  3. Open the file and gaze lovingly at your masterpiece

How to capture a selected area of the screen

  1. Press shift + command + 4. The pointer will turn into a tiny crossThis is great if you're looking to capture something specific, like a hilarious meme or a poignant passage from a personal blog.
  2. Drag to select the area you wish to capture. Release the mouse or trackpad to take a screenshotTo cancel, press the ESC key on your keyboard or select cancel on the Touch Bar (if you're using a MacBook Pro). When you release, you should hear a snapshot sound.
  3. Locate the screenshot (.png file) on your desktop

How to capture a window

  1. Press shift + command + 4. The pointer will turn into a tiny cross
  2. Press the space bar. The crosshair will turn into a cameraIf you're using a MacBook Pro, select the camera icon on the Touch Bar.
  3. Click the touchpad or mouse. To cancel, press the ESC key or select cancel on the Touch Bar
  4. Locate the screenshot (.png file) on your desktop

How to capture a menu

  1. Open the menu
  2. Press shift + command + 4. The pointer will turn into a tiny cross
  3. Drag to select the area you want to captureYou can adjust the size of the gray box by moving the tiny cross around.
  4. Locate the screenshot (.png file) on your desktop

How to capture a screenshot of the Touch Bar

Laptop
  1. Press shift + command + 6Not the most exciting image in the world, but there you go.
  2. Locate the screenshot (.png file) on your desktop

How to take a screenshot on a PC

How to take a screenshot of the entire screen

Macintosh
  1. Press shift + command + 6Not the most exciting image in the world, but there you go.
  2. Locate the screenshot (.png file) on your desktop

How to take a screenshot on a PC

How to take a screenshot of the entire screen

Capturing a screenshot isn't as intuitive on PC as it is on Mac, but it's still pretty easy to do. First we'll go over how to do it without installing any third-party programs, but we highly recommend you scroll down and check out Lightspot, a free app that brings Mac-style functionality to Windows 10. Lightspot really does a bang up job of eliminating those extra steps.

  1. To capture a screenshot of your whole screen and save it to the clipboard so you can paste it later, press the Print Screen key on your keyboardTypically, the Print Screen key is to the right of the function keys. Depending on your keyboard, it may also be listed as 'PrtScn.'
  2. If you want to capture the window you're currently using, hold down the alt key and and press Press Screen. Any other programs you may be using will be left out of the shot.

How to find/save your screenshot

  1. Select the Windows Start button on the bottom left corner of your screen
  2. Select Applications
  3. Open Paint. Yes, this archaic tool still exists
  4. Press control + V to paste your screenshot from the clipboard
  5. Select the floppy disk icon to save

How to edit/crop your screenshot

  1. Open Paint
  2. Click on the Select button in the toolbarYou can chose a rectangular outline or a free-form outline.
  3. Drag to select or outline the area you'd like to keep
  4. Click on the Crop button in the toolbar

How to use Lightshot (highly recommended)

  1. Install Lightshot or add the Chrome extension

Lightshot is a free screenshot app for PC and Mac. It's a blessing, really, especially if you're a PC user, as you don't have to mess around with Paint or open up additional programs. In other words, it brings Mac-style screenshot functionality to Windows 10.
2. To take a screenshot, you can either press the print screen key on your keyboard or click the Lightshot icon on the bottom right of your screen. When you take a screenshot, the screen will dim slightly
3. Click and drag to highlight the area you want to capture
4. Release the mouse/trackpad to edit, upload, share on social media, and so on

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You might occasionally need to capture the image on your computer screen so you can save or share it. If you've used a PC designed to run Microsoft Windows, you've probably used the Print Screen key on the keyboard to do this. If you're using a Mac, though, you'll notice Apple doesn't include such a key. Don't worry, though, because we're about to look at the keyboard combinations and built-in tools you can use on your Mac to capture what you need from the screen.

First, let's look at the keyboard combinations you can use to capture the image on your screen. The keystrokes for screenshots are multiple keys that should be pressed together. When you do this, press and hold the first key, then the second, and so forth, and immediately release all keys after pressing the final one in the sequence. The following are the keystrokes to remember for screen capturing:

Command+Shift+3 captures the entire screen and saves it to a file on your desktop.

Command+Shift+4 temporarily replaces your mouse cursor with a tool to select any rectangular portion of the screen. Click and drag the tool to make your selection. Your cursor immediately returns to normal after that selection.

Control added to the start of either of these sequences saves the image to the clipboard temporarily instead of to a permanent file. That allows you to copy and paste what you see on the screen into an application, such as image editing software.

If you don't use the Control key, your Mac saves these keystroke captures to your desktop by default. When you're capturing images this way, you won't see any system or app notifications to verify success. Instead, the system just plays a chime that sounds like a film camera snapping a photo. To see the files you're saving, you'll have to either open your Finder or minimize your windows to find the images saved on the desktop.

Mac OS X traditionally saved keyboard-generated screenshots as tagged image file format (TIFF) files. Macs switched to portable document format (PDF) starting in the 10.2 release of OS X, and to portable network graphics (PNG) files by 10.6. Later, we'll look at how you can convert any of these images to other file formats.

While keystrokes let you get a quick capture from the screen, they have limited options for what you're capturing. That's where the Grab utility comes in. Next, let's take a look at how to use Grab, including how to capture a specific window and how to time the capture to include things like mouse-over text or drop-down menus.

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The Grab Utility and Converting Screenshot Files

Preview, Mac's default app for opening images, gives you the option of saving files in various image formats.

Grab offers more features than keystrokes alone when capturing images from your Mac's computer screen. To open Grab, open your Finder, select 'applications' under 'places,' and expand 'utilities.' Grab should be one of the utilities listed there. Double-click to open the app from there in the Finder.

When using Grab, you won't see an application window on the screen until you've captured something. Instead, you'll just have the Grab icon in your Dock, showing that the app is running, and the Grab menu across the top when the app is in the forefront. When you're ready to take a screenshot, click the Grab icon to bring it to the forefront.

Large Screen Laptops

With Grab active, choose one of the following options under the Capture menu:

Selection — This works similar to the Control+Shift+4 keystroke, in that you're prompted to select a rectangular portion of the screen.

Window — When you select this, Grab prepares a 'choose window' button you can use when you have the window ready to capture. Click that button, then immediately click anywhere inside the window you want to capture. Even if the window is partially hidden by other windows, Grab will capture it as if it was the top window. However, any portion of the window that's off-screen probably won't be in the shot.

Screen — This works similar to the Control+Shift+3 keystroke in that it captures the entire screen as you see it.

Timed Screen — This lets you stage something on your screen that only appears when you have your mouse in a certain position, such as a drop-down menu or mouse-over text tips. The timer is about 10 seconds long, and Grab plays a beep with one second remaining.

Where Does Mac Save Screenshots

After you capture a new image, Grab opens that image in a new window rather than saving it to a permanent file. Unlike an image editor, this window, called the Inspector, is only for previewing the image so that you can decide whether or not you want to keep it. Since the Inspector's contents are the same as part of your screen, keep a sharp look out for the edges of the Inspector so your eyes don't mistake them for your main screen.

If you need to redo an image, just close the Inspector with that image in it and click 'don't save' when prompted. If you want to keep it, use one of the save options under the 'file' menu as you would in other apps. Grab saves files in the TIFF file format only.

You can easily convert a TIFF or other image file to a different file format using the Preview utility in Mac OS X. Preview is the default app for opening images, so you can open Preview just by double-clicking the image you want to convert. With the image open in Preview, select 'save as' from the 'file' menu, and then use the 'format' drop-down menu in the save dialog to choose which format you want to convert to.

We just looked at two options for capturing images on your Mac screen. Both options — keystroke combinations and the Grab utility — are built into Mac OS X. Capture more on taking screenshots on a Mac by checking out the links that follow.

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Sources

Mac Computer Laptops For Sale

  • Adobe Developers Association. 'TIFF, Revision 6.0, Final.' Adobe Systems Incorporated. June 3, 1992. (Aug. 3, 2011) http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/tiff/TIFF6.pdf
  • Adobe Developer Connection. 'PDF Reference and Adobe Extensions to the PDF Specification.' Adobe Systems Incorporated. (Aug. 3, 2011) http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html
  • Apple, Inc. 'Mac OS X: Shortcuts for taking pictures of the screen.' June 21, 2004. (Aug. 1, 2011) http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61544
  • Apple, Inc. 'Mac OS X 10.2: Screen Shots Are Saved in PDF, May Be Converted.' Oct. 3, 2008. (Aug. 1, 2011) http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20935?viewlocale=en_US
  • WC3. 'Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification (Second Edition).' 2003. (Aug. 3, 2011) http://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/

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