Screenshot
A screenshot is a picture of the current view of a computer's visual output. Common output formats are JPEG, BMP, or PNG.
Contents
Mac OS X
Entire screen
To take a screenshot of an entire screen in Mac OS X, follow these instructions:
- Hold down the apple key and the shift key.
- Press and let go of the number 3 key.
- The screenshot that you have taken, will appear on the desktop as a PNG file. It acts like a picture file.
Selected area
To take a screenshot of a selected area, follow these instructions:
- Hold down the apple key and the shift key.
- Press and let go of the number 4 key.
- Instead of having an arrow as your cursor, a selection crosshairs will appear.
- You then will hold down the mouse and drag the mouse until you have highlighted all the material you want in your screenshot.
- Once you have let go of the mouse, the screenshot that you have taken, will appear on the desktop as a PNG file.
Windows XP/Vista
Entire screen
Take a screenshot of the entire screen in Windows XP by following these steps:
- Press the Print Screen key. This will copy the screenshot to the clipboard.
- Open an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Microsoft Paint, or Paint.NET.
- Create a new document in the image editing application of choice.
- Paste the contents of your clipboard into your new document.
Single window
Take a screenshot of a single window by following these steps:
- Bring the window you would like to take a screenshot of into focus.
- Hold the Alt key and press the Print Screen key. This will copy the screenshot of the selected window to the clipboard.
- Open an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop.
- Create a new document in the image editing application of choice.
- Paste the contents of your clipboard into your new document.
Utility
For added flexibility and functionality, you may also use a third-party utility, such as FastStone Capture, to take screenshots. This program has been added to the default software on any new distributed faculty/staff computers.