What Is A Screenshot?
A screenshot, sometimes also called a screengrab, or a screencap is an image that shows your desktop screen and all its contents. It can be taken on Windows, Mac, and even mobile operating systems like Android or IOS.
If you want someone to see exactly what you see on your display, then a screenshot is the way to go. There are different ways to take a screenshot based on the device and operating system you are using.
But, they all perform the same task to capture the screen you are currently looking at.
How To Take a Screenshot On A Mac Device
There are multiple ways of taking a screenshot while working on a Mac. The first way of taking a screenshot on a Mac is via keyboard shortcuts. This is an effortless way of taking a screenshot using a combination of just three keys.
To take a screenshot of the whole screen
You need to press the keys of ‘Command’ + ‘Shift’ + ‘3’ together to record your desktop image. Just by simply pressing these three keys together will capture whatever is on your screen. By default, it will save this image to your desktop.
The name that will be given to this image will be ‘Screen Shot’ followed by the date and time that the image was taken. This key combination will take a screenshot of your entire screen and whatever is on it.
When you take a screenshot on any Mac OS, you will notice a floating image preview on the lower right corner of your desktop.
To take a screenshot of a selected area
But what if you want to take a screenshot of just a particular area of your screen and not the entire screen itself? There is a way of doing that, as well. To take a screenshot of just one particular area, you need to press the following key combination.
Press ‘Command’ + ‘Shift’ + ‘4’ together. This will turn your mouse pointer into a small reticule,
and you can now select the area you wish to screenshot. All you need to do is click and drag your mouse over to the area you wish to capture and let go once you’ve covered the desired area. If you wish to cancel the screenshot then you can just hit the ‘Esc’ key to exit without taking a screenshot.
Once you have clicked and dragged over the area you wish to screenshot you can simply let go of the mouse and the screenshot will be saved to your desktop. This will be saved under the name of ‘Screen Shot’ followed by the date and time it was taken.
To take a screenshot of a window
Press ‘Command’ + ‘Shift’ + ‘5’ together to take a screenshot of a particular active window. Remember to keep the window you need to capture open along with other windows. Press the required key combination and then click on the window of which you wish to take a screenshot.How to take a screenshot on your MAC
Mac OS Mojave Feature
If you’re using Mac OS Mojave or higher then you can easily enable an on-screen marquee tool that you can move to any part of the screen and even resize it with ease. To enable this function:
Press ‘Command’ + ‘Shift’ + ‘5’ together. When you press this key combination together, it will bring up a small panel on your screen. This is the screenshot or screen record panel. The panel has a select set of buttons that lets you decide how or what you would like to capture. Once you select which option you would like, all you need to do to take a screenshot is hit the capture button.
The options give you more versatility. Beside the capture button on the screenshot panel, you will see another button called options. Here you will get a limited set of options that can help you customize your screenshot experience.
Under ‘Save to’ you can select the location where the captured screenshot will be saved. You get options like the default desktop and documents, clipboard, mail, messages, or other locations.
If you do not wish to save your screenshots on your desktops, as it may clutter it up, you can easily select a different location.
You even get a timer option that you can enable to take a screenshot after 5 or 10 seconds of clicking the capture button. You can also select the ‘Remember Last Selection’ option.
This way, if you need to take multiple screenshots of the same size or at the same location, you won’t have to move or resize the selection.
When you have this option selected and take the first screenshot, all of the following screenshots will have the section box in the same place and of the same size. Note that this will only work when the third option ‘Capture selected portion’ is selected and will not work in the first two.
Mac OS Mojave
You Can Even Record Your Screen
Yes, you can even record your screen with the screenshot panel. There are two options available on the panel for this feature.
Record the entire screen: As the name suggests this will record the entire desktop screen. To activate it all you need to do is click on the option from the panel bar. Once you click on it the capture button will change and become ‘Record'.
To begin all you need to do is click on the record button. When you do the screenshot panel bar will disappear and your screen recording will begin. To stop it, you will notice a stop button on the menu bar. Click on it to stop the screen recording. Similarly, when you take a screenshot you will notice a floating image preview on the bottom right side of your desktop.
Record a selected portion: Just like taking a screenshot of a selected portion of the screen, you can now record a video of a selected portion of the screen. When you click on it you will get the same selection toolbox that you can move and resize. The rest is the same as recording the entire screen.
