How To Take A Screenshot On A Mac Using Grab and Preview Apps. In this video, I'll be showing how to take screenshot on a Mac using the Mac Applications Grab and Preview.
OS X offers another method on how to screen capture using Mac Apps as opposed to using keyboard shortcuts as shown using Method 1.
TRANSCRIPT:
In Episode 1 from "my Mac OS X Adventures" Series We demonstrated how to take screenshots using your keyboard.
In This Episode, We'll be demonstrating how to take screenshots using Mac Applications.
TOPICS COVERED:
The Two preinstalled Mac Applications included with OS X for screen capture.
And...The Differences between the two Apps.
"Let's Get Started"
If you prefer to take screenshots using Mac Applications instead of using keyboard keystrokes as demonstrated in Episode 1, then you'll be happy to know that OS X comes preinstalled with two screen capture apps that you can use.
Namely the "Grab" and "Preview" Applications
Let's look at the Grab App first:
To launch the Grab app, simply click on Launchpad and click on the Other Folder, and click on the Grab icon to launch it.
The Grab app, does just that...grabs you screen and creates a screenshot.
Before starting a screen capture, Grab has a couple of cool tools that you can launch, one allows you to see the dimensions of your screenshot after a screen capture and the other allows you to choose from 6 different Cursors to be included or not in your screenshot.
Incidentally, when using the Selection capture, the cursor option is not available.
Now, on the Grab menubar, click Capture, you will notice that you have 4 screen capture options available, these are, capture a Selection..., a Window..., the Full screen... or perform a timed screen capture, which we'll be getting to in just a moment.
When performing any of the above captures, you will be presented with a Dialogue box explaining how to perform the capture or cancel it. By the way, the Dialogue Box will not be included in your captured screenshots.
Probably the best feature in the Grab app, is the Timed Screen option, this option has a 10 seconds delay before the screen capture is taken, allowing you to set up the screen just the way you like it before the 10 seconds is up.
We'll demonstrate this by Capturing the Gadget Widget Option screen and also choose a Cursor to be included in the screenshot.
We'll just save this screenshot and come back to it later.
The Grab app has several limitations,
Firstly, it can only save screenshots in the Tiff file format, we'll show how to save it in a different format using the Preview app a bit later.
Secondly, You are unable to edit or add any special effects like annotations to your screenshots
And thirdly; you are unable when doing a selection screen capture to move the rectangle around.
You may ask, then why use it, well unless you want to include different cursors or perform a time delayed screen capture, then that's probably the only time you would use it.
The second screen capture Mac app included in OS X is the Preview App...
As of OS X 10.4, Preview now includes a Grab Submenu to create screenshots.
In my opinion, it's best to use the Preview App from the get go, as it offers more options not available in Grab, in particularly, saving your screenshots in countless formats, 13 in all.
To launch Preview...click launchpad then click the Preview icon.
Now from the Preview menubar, click File and scroll down to the Take a Screen shot option, you are now presented to take a screen shot from Selection, Window or the Entire Screen.
We'll just perform a Selection screen capture for this example.
Incidentally, when performing a Selection screen capture in Preview, you can use the same manipulation techniques used in option 3 from Episode 1 to move the rectangle around, as mentioned before, this is not possible to do using the Grab app. (Show Option 3 Screen from Ep1).
Once the screen capture is taken, you are now able
to edit and manipulate it using many effects, such as, adding labels, annotations, cropping and many more, as shown here.
We'll just save the screenshots by clicking File on the Preview menubar and choose Save...
TOP TIP: When saving screenshots in Preview, you are shown only a limited amount of formats, 6 in all...but if you hold down the Option key while you click the popup menu for format...you are presented with all the available formats that you can choose to save your screenshots, a total of 13 in all.
Remember the Grab screenshot taken earlier, in order to save the Tiff file in a different format, do a Quick Look of your screenshot by pressing the space bar and click the Preview Button in the top right hand corner, as shown here. You are now able to edit the screenshot then save it by going to the menubar, click File and click Export, then choose the format you wish to save the screenshot in...and that's that. (By the way, the original Tiff screenshot is still preserved).
And there you have it, you now have three methods for screen capture when using OS X...using your keyboard as shown in Episode 1 and using the Grab or Preview Apps as shown in this Episode.
Thanks for watching...please give a Thumbs Up if you liked this video and...Don't forget to subscribe to be notified of the latest upcoming episodes from this Series.
Thanks and Peace
To restore to default, simply enter the same commands entered earlier, replacing write with delete and number of second, leave blank as shown:
