Mac OS X 10.5 Help

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Shortcuts for taking pictures of the screen

Use these shortcuts to take pictures of the screen in Mac OS X.

NOTE: If you're working on a portable computer, press the Fn key in combination with the other keys listed here; for example, press Fn-Control-F2.

Action

Shortcut

Take a picture of the whole screen

⌘-Shift-3

Take a picture of part of the screen

⌘-Shift-4, and then drag the crosshair pointer to select the area

To cancel, press Escape

Take a picture of a window or the menu bar

?-Shift-4, press the Space Bar, move the camera pointer over the area to highlight it, and then click.

To cancel, press Escape

Take a picture of a menu

Click the menu to display the menu commands, press ⌘-Shift-4, and do one of the following:

To take a picture of the menu without its title, press the Space Bar, move the camera pointer over the menu to highlight it, and then click.

To take a picture of the menu and its title, drag the crosshair pointer over the area.

To cancel, press Escape



Screen shots are saved as files on the desktop. If you want to put the screen shot in the Clipboard (rather than create a file) hold down the Control key when you press the other keys. You can then paste the picture into a document.

When you're selecting an area after after pressing ⌘-Shift-4, you can modify the selection by doing one of the following:

To move the selection rectangle, hold down the Space bar.

To constrain the selection rectangle horizontally or vertically, hold down the Shift key.

To resize the selection rectangle around the center of the selection, hold down the Option key.

You can also take pictures of the screen using the Grab application (in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder).

Some applications, such as DVD Player, may not let you take pictures of the screen.

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