Who Needs A Print Screen Key?
Looking at the typical that Apple keyboard one would assume that there is no print screen function in OS X. Well, I got some news and it might be a shocker. OS X has more robust print screen functionality than Windows XP.
Just use any of the following commands to place a shiny new PDF on your desktop.
CMD + Shift + 3
This will take a screenshot of your entire screen.
CMD + Shift + 4
This will bring up a selection tool so you can make a rectangular screenshot of a certain area.
CMD + Shift + 4 + Space Bar
This will turn your cursor into a tiny camera. Use this camera to take a picture of the Dock, a menu, or a window and it will crop the background automatically for the resulting image.
Note: If you hold down the Control key during and of the above commands the image gets copied to your clipboard, ready to paste, rather than creating a PDF on your desktop.
24 Comments
junipa
October 31st, 2006
at 1:46pm
bah! this doesn’t work
hamad tarek
May 19th, 2007
at 11:46pm
this does not work to copy from a parallels window and then paste to outlook within parallels. the mac copy function only copies to make apps.
Howard Brazee
July 26th, 2007
at 7:17am
I hate Mac screen printing – I don’t want to find the generic picture on my desktop, open it, print it, then delete it.
I use Printkey 2000 on Windows machines, which has the option of allowing me to just print what I captured.
I downloaded and tried Jing, and found that it doesn’t have a Print tab. I just want to print what I select without the hassle of creating a file I need to process and clean up.
Chuck Whealton
September 5th, 2007
at 6:31pm
Thanks for these excellent tips. The third one was exactly what I needed, minus the PDFs it can generate.
Works perfect when pasting into NeoOffice!
Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com
Katy
December 19th, 2007
at 9:03pm
I love it, this is just what I’ve been looking for. I’m new to macs, I’ve only had my Macbook for about a year and this provided an elegant and very Mac-like solution to one of my very few complaints. Thank you!
Andy B
January 31st, 2008
at 4:51pm
Um… Surely it pops a PNG on your desktop, not a PDF
Darrin Keller
February 2nd, 2008
at 12:29am
Thanks! This works really well! I am new to the Mac OS and I was afraid there wasn’t a Print Screen until I read this post. I am not sure I like how it saves it to the desktop vs to memory but still, i like being able to save a selection.
Vista
February 18th, 2008
at 8:58pm
Wow thats pretty cool!
Peter
March 12th, 2008
at 6:16pm
Andy B- no it does drop a PDF – Apple/Adobe seem to work together a fair bit.
Extremely handy reference!
johnblog » Blog Archive » OS X Screen Capture!
March 25th, 2008
at 6:34am
[...] Some apple keyboard users may have noticed the lack of a “Print Screen” key.. Never fear, there is a print screen function in OS X, and it’s far superior to the Windows version! (this tip comes from This Great Source) [...]
Slop
May 14th, 2008
at 9:50am
works perfect! thanks!
Joanne
June 25th, 2008
at 5:14pm
this is great! works like a charm… is automatically saved on your desktop, you can open it with Preview and Save As: Jpeg or many other formats.
this was very helpful, thank you all!
MArcus
July 26th, 2008
at 3:39am
wtf CMD + Shift + 3 !? Couldnt they just make it one key so people who dont printscreen every single day can remember it !?
janacigler
September 26th, 2008
at 1:30am
What an excellent tip, thanks a million! Works perfect!
charles
October 2nd, 2008
at 7:06am
it works perfectly! Screenshot get copied to desktop.
Elijah Nicolas
November 5th, 2008
at 4:22pm
awesome quick google find!
Stan
January 11th, 2009
at 4:00pm
Works like a charm! Exactly what I was looking for…. Thanks!
Andis Lam
February 23rd, 2009
at 10:01pm
very useful. Thanks!
Ray
February 27th, 2009
at 2:05am
Easy way that I remember this is that Command-Shift-4 give you the “Money Shot” (shift 4 is $)
John
March 5th, 2009
at 3:46pm
Thanks for the tip. It actually drops a PNG onto my desktop, not a PDF (OSX 10.5.6)
Thomas Hogarth
April 27th, 2009
at 11:50am
Cheers for the tip,
Although superior to Windows printscreen I think not. Having it place a pdf on the desktop is stupid. Plus windows has alt-printsreen which just does the selected window. No selection required.
MacUser
July 1st, 2009
at 11:25am
Realy awsome – combination of ten key to remember instead of one :/
Windows user
August 18th, 2009
at 8:16am
Sorry to be a tool but what key is the command key? I have the control the alt/option the apple logo key but no command key.
Would a windows keyboard plugged in allow the use of the print screen? Kind of like how a windows mouse allows better navigation with the extra buttons?
thanks.
David
December 2nd, 2009
at 3:40am
Windows user, the command key is the apple logo key.