Screen capturing is an essential feature of any operating system. It helps troubleshooters fix problems remotely, allows us to make neat tutorials and in general, it is just a cleaner way to save interesting snippets right from the monitor to the storage. Most importantly, are created that way. We’ll be exploring a few tips in screen capturing – or taking a screenshot, if you will.
Can I get a snipping tool on my Mac? Update Cancel. Ad by ManageEngine ADSolutions. Windows server change auditing tool. Free trial available. Just go to system peference->Keyboard preference-Shortcut to copy to clipboard, you can change the shortcut and the shortcut just works like snipping tool in Mac. David Ritchie. Just recently switched to OSX, and I loved using the snipping tool for. There are other hotkeys you can use in conjunction with the hotkeys.
Screenshots on Macs Macs have had nice and clean way of taking screenshots – a few simple keyboard shortcuts. I say “a few”, because a full screen capture isn’t the only thing Macs can do. Plus, they’ve had the ability to skip the process of pasting the screen image and then saving the file like Windows users have had to do, until now. Full screen capture All you have to do is use the keyboard shortcut command shift 3. The image of the current screen is saved in full resolution in a PNG file. For easy access it is available right on the desktop. The location can be changed and you’ll soon know how.
This is the screen before the screenshot was taken. Plenty of screenshots here already. The following is what happens after the screenshot is taken. Notice one new file has appeared? The file is saved with the name based on the time of the day, so you know when it was taken.
The name follows a certain template: Screen Shot YYYY-MM-DD at H.mm.ss A/P.PNG Isn’t that handy? A quick preview at the file reveals how nicely the screen was captured. Screenshots are awesome Partial screen capture For partial screenshots, you should use the shortcut command shift 4.
This would turn your mouse pointer to a target pointer. Your current pointer co-ordinates will be mentioned around your pointer as well.
It’s difficult to explain here as, you might have already observed, the mouse pointer is never a part of the screenshot. The target pointer should be used to mark the rectangular area to be captured. Press and hold the mouse key and drag it until the rectangle covers the required area.
Once the key is released, the file will be saved just like that of a full screen capture. Here, I’ve captured the Activity Monitor alone Partial screen captures are instantaneous after selection of the region. It has to be timed correctly to capture the right frame in a shot that has movement. Tip: While partial screen captures are good enough, we’d recommend you use the full screen capture and crop the image to the relevant region.
This would make editing easier and more precise. Full screen capture in multi monitor scenarios If an external/second monitor is used in the mirroring mode, since they display the exact same thing there will only be one screen shot. However, in extended mode, separate screenshots will be taken for each screen and saved on the desktop with the same time-stamped name appended with the screen number in parentheses. Something like “ Screen Shot YYYY-MM-DD at H.mm.ss A/P (screen-number).PNG“. Capturing screen images into clipboard Sometimes it isn’t necessary to have an image file of the screen captured.
They can immediately be inserted into a Pages/Keynote/Word/Powerpoint document by pasting the image from the clipboard. To copy the screen image into the clipboard, one must simply hold the control key along with the respective shortcuts for the kind of screenshot to be taken. Use command control shift 3 for copying the entire screen into the clipboard or command control shift 4 to copy a part of the screen.
Changing shortcut keys for taking screenshots The above mentioned ways for taking screenshots works only if the settings are default. That can be changed through the following steps. Launch “System Preferences” Do it either by visiting Launchpad (pinch with four fingers on your touchpad), or from the dock (assuming you have it there).
If not, pick it from the options listed in your Apple menu. Concentrate on what you have to do. Don’t look at the “Other” section 2. Visit Screenshots settings Click on “Keyboard” listed under “Hardware” in System Preferences. In the resulting window open up the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab. Here, you can change a wide range of shortcuts.
Macs are meant to be personal, so change all of them and confuse the crap out of those who borrow it. Change Screenshot shortcuts The rest is pretty clear, but we’ll play.
Click on “Screen Shots” in the left column. As you can see, we’ve mentioned all of them here.
They’re the default shortcuts but can be changed to whatever you like, perhaps something easier. However, we recommend that the shortcut should be a 3 key combination to avoid getting accidentally invoked. Change the location for saving screenshots If you don’t want screenshots filling up on your desktop, you can change the location where screenshots are saved with a few terminal commands. This is how you do it.
Launch the terminal Do this by searching for “terminal” in Spotlight or via Launchpad. If not use Finder and browser through “Applications” and the “Utilities” folder. Change the location for screenshots Create a folder wherever you wish screenshots to be saved. Keep the Finder window handy. Enter the following command and press return. Defaults write com.apple.screencapture location.location. Here replace.location.
with whatever location you’ve decided. As an alternate, type everything before.location. and then drag the folder for screenshots on to the terminal window. The location will automatically appear. Restart your system In this case restart doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll need to do a warm reboot, although that is an option. You can simply enter the following in the terminal. Killall SystemUIServer This will effectively stop the running of UI elements.
The system will be in a state of panic for a moment before this component is turned back on now with your new setting in effect. You can take a screenshot now and it’ll be saved in your new location. To revert this setting just use the location of your Desktop folder in step 2.
Screenshots on Windows Windows has treated screenshots differently. It has always been more of a troubleshooter’s tool than one who finds amusement in the contents of the display. Full screen captures into the clipboard This is as easy as tapping the Print Screen key. Even on the most recent of laptops, the Print Screen key continues to exist either as a dedicated key or as an auxiliary. Take a good look at the word “” or its variants on your keyboard.
If it’s coloured the same as your Fn key, you’ll have to use Fn Print Screen. The screen captured will be available in the clipboard ready to be pasted into any document you like. You could just paste it into about anything that accepts images – Paint, Word and Powerpoint. To save the image as a file just paste it in paint and save it with whatever name you’d like. There is no way for partial screen captures into the clipboard. Tip: Windows screenshots don’t allow videos, playing in Windows Media Player, or some specifically coded games, be a part of the screenshot, so keep that in mind. Partial screen captures Partial screenshots can be taken using the Snipping Tool.
You’ll need to launch the Snipping Tool from the Start menu under Accessories. For Windows 8 it would be easier to search for it on the Start screen. The Snipping Tool is an application that will let you capture parts of your screen when active.
When ready click on the New button. This will freeze the screen and everything that exhibited movement.
The pointer changes to a target pointer, letting you choose a rectangular area to be captured. When that is done, you can simply save the file if you like it or give it another try. Tip: Use the Snipping Tool only in the desktop mode on Windows 8. It won’t be accessible to use on Windows 8 apps. However, there is evidence it will capture parts of a Windows 8 app if the desktop is snapped with it.
Also, like the full screen capture the snipping tool too doesn’t capture video or games. Assign Snipping Tool a shortcut The best way to invoke the snipping tool is to assign it a shortcut. Unlike Mac OS, shortcuts have to be assigned to the app itself. Locate the snipping tool shortcut in the Start menu. If in Windows 8, go into the All Apps screen and locate snipping tool; right click it and click on “Open File Location”. Right click on the Snipping Tool shortcut in the Start menu (or the window of its file location in Windows 8) and visit its “Properties”.
In its Properties, change the shortcut key from blank to whichever combination you’d like. We like Control Shift 3 to keep us free from confusion on Windows running on bootcamp.
Apply the changes and give it a try. Full screen capture in Windows 8 Windows 8, alone, now allows a screenshot to be immediately saved in the Screenshots folder of your Pictures library if you use the new shortcut. All one has to do is press the Windows key along with the Print Screen key to make it happen. The screenshot will be a PNG file with the name “Screenshot” with the index number in parentheses. The screenshot index is stored in the registry so deleting a screenshot won’t advance the index of the next screenshot. In Windows 8 tablets screenshots are taken by pressing the physical Windows key and the physical Volume Down key simultaneously. Multi-monitor handling of screenshots In Windows, an extend mode display will have one screenshot in which both screen captures are appended to one another in the exact way that they’re extended.
Our thoughts We’re seriously stunned at how much one could talk about screenshots. It has been too long a post to proofread. Still, we might have missed something and if you know anything we haven’t mentioned we’d be happy to learn it as well.
Do leave us your suggestions/feedbacks/screenshots if you might.
Note: Believe in privacy? We bet you are!
Use VPN for this purpose. Google yourself or try well known (huge sale) In this article, we describe what the Snipping Tool does and how to use it, and we also list many Snipping Tool Mac alternatives.
Snipping Tool Under Microscope The idiom “a picture is worth a thousand words” is especially applicable in today’s digital age. Sharing of images has become incredibly easy, and much of what we do every day takes place on a computer screen. As such, people naturally want to capture what they write, see, create, and do for a myriad of different reasons. To make screenshot-taking easier for users, Microsoft has created Snipping Tool. To access this tool, select the Start button, type snipping tool in the search box on the taskbar, and then select Snipping Tool from the list of results.
A small window will appear on your screen with four snipping modes:. Free-form snip: this option allows you to draw a free-form shape around an object and save it as an image file. Rectangular snip: this option allows you to drag the cursor around an object to form a rectangle and save it as an image file. Window snip: this option allows you to select a window, such as a browser window or dialog box, and save it as an image file.
Full-screen snip: this option captures the entire screen and saves it as an image file. Other features of Snipping Tool include the option to set a delay as well as the option to annotate your snips by selecting the Pen or Highlighter buttons. Snipping Tool also supports a number of keyboard shortcuts:. Alt + M: choose a snipping mode. Alt + N: create a new snip in the same mode as the last one. Shift + arrow keys: moves the cursor to select a rectangular snip area. Alt + D: delays capture by 1-5 seconds.
Ctrl + C: copies the snip to clipboard. Ctrl +: saves the snip. Ctrl + PrtScn: captures the entire screen, including the open menu.
As you can see, Snipping Tool is quite powerful for such a small utility that many users are not even aware of. Unfortunately, we have bad news for Windows users who wonder how to use Snipping Tool on Mac: Apple’s operating system doesn’t come with this useful application. But it comes with another screenshot-taking tool, called Grab, and you can think of it as Snipping Tool for Mac. Snipping Tool for Mac: Grab is a Mac Snipping Tool alternative that makes it possible to take screenshots of your screen and save them as image files. Just like Snipping Tool for Windows, Grab has several screen-capture modes, and it also supports keyboard shortcuts. Best of all, there’s no need to look for Snipping Tool download for Mac links as Grab comes included with all recent versions of macOS.
To access Grab, you can either:. Open it from the Utilities folder under Applications. Type /Applications/Utilities/ Grab.app in Finder.
Open Launchpad → Other → Grab. Open Spotlight and type in Grab. By default, Grab saves screenshots in the PNG image file format. PNG is the most widely used lossless image compression format on the Internet, and it has a number of advantages over other lossless image compression formats.
The problem with the PNG file format is that it produces somewhat large files. Fortunately, Grab allows you to change the default file format to JPG, TIFF, GIF, and PDF formats. To change it to JPG, open Terminal and type in “defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg” without the quotation marks.
To change it to TIFF, open Terminal and type in “defaults write com.apple.screencapture type tiff” without the quotation marks. To change it to GIF, open Terminal and type in “defaults write com.apple.screencapture type gif” without the quotation marks. To change it to PDF, open Terminal and type in “defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf” without the quotation marks. To change it back to PNG, open Terminal and type in “defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png” without the quotation marks. Okay, so you have Grab open, configured, and ready, but how do you take a picture of your screen or a part of it?
You have several options:. Grab → Capture → Selection: using this option, you can capture a specific region of your screen by dragging a selection box around. Shift + Command + A: this shortcut provides an alternative way how to trigger the selection option. Grab → Capture → Window: using this option, you can capture a screenshot of a window that you select. Shift + Command + W: this shortcut provides an alternative way how to trigger the window-capture option. Grap → Capture → Screen: using this option, you can capture a screenshot of your whole screen.
Command + Z: this shortcut provides an alternative way how to trigger the screen-capture option. Grab → Capture → Timed Screen: using this option, you can start a 10-second timer, select a part of your screen, and then take a screenshot.
Shift + Command + Z: this shortcut provides an alternative way how to trigger the timed screen-capture option. More Snipping Tool Mac Alternatives If you would prefer even simpler alternative to Snipping Tool for Mac than Grab, you’ll be pleased to know that macOS comes with not one but three such alternatives:. Command + Shift + 3: captures a screenshot of your entire screen. Command + Shift + 4: turns the cursor into a crosshair, allowing you to select which portion of your screen you would like to capture. Command + Shift + 4 + Space: after pressing the space bar, the crosshair turns into a little camera icon, allowing you to move over any open window to take a screenshot of it.
All screenshots taken using these three shortcuts are saved to your desktop. You can also press control to save the screenshots to your clipboard instead, which is useful if you intend to paste them into other applications anyway. Greenshot is an advanced screenshot-taking tool with built-in OCR capabilities. Just like Snipping Tool for Windows, Greenshot allows you to create screenshots of a selected region, window, or entire screen.
It can even capture complete web pages from Internet Explorer without any addons. You can easily annotate, highlight, or obfuscate, the screenshots you take with Greenshot using the application itself and export them in various ways. Greenshot is completely free, open source, and it runs on both macOS and Windows. LightShot is a Mac Snipping Tool alternative and arguably the fastest way how to take a customizable screenshot. The application features a simple and intuitive user interface, which allows you to select any area on your desktop and take its screenshot with just two button-clicks.
You can then share your screenshots with others by saving them to your computer or uploading them to LightShot’s servers. LightShot comes with an intuitive yet powerful screenshot editor, so you don’t have to leave the application just to highlight a part of a screenshot or add an annotation. Snagit is more than yet another Snipping Tool for Mac: it’s a full-featured screen-capture software with built-in advanced image editing and screen recording capabilities. The target audience of this powerful application is content creators, educators, business people, and really anyone who wants to add visuals to communicate clearly and be more engaging. With Snagit, you can capture your entire desktop, region, window, or scrolling screen. It takes just a few clicks to make complex edits right within the application, and Snagit’s user interface is so intuitive that using it is a pleasure. Recover Deleted Screenshots on Mac Disk Drill isn’t a Snipping Tool alternative for Mac computers — it’s something even better.
With Disk Drill, you can recover all common and not-so-common image file formats, so you’ll never lose any of your screenshots, pictures, videos, music, documents, or any other files since Disk Drill supports the recovery of over 200 file formats. You can download Disk Drill for free and use it without any expert knowledge, and there are several extra reasons why you should definitely do so because it comes with extra free disk tools that can find duplicates on your hard drive, backup your data, or monitor the health of your hard drive, among many other things. Disk Drill has been successfully used to recover important files by countless professional and home users alike, establishing itself as the most accessible and reliable data recovery solutions for macOS.