How To Use Print Screen In Mac

Categorized under Mac OS X

This method is workable to capture screenshot on Mac, including iMac, MacBook Air and other models. To use this method, here are the ways to do it: 1. Capture Entire Screen. To take a whole portion of webpage on Safari with keyboard shortcuts, all you need to do is to combine keys of “Shift + Command + 3”. Unfortunately, Apple desktops and laptops don’t come with a straightforward Print Screen key. They do, however, have a few keyboard commands and apps that allow you to get the shot you need.

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How to Print Your Screen on a Mac Take a screenshot of your entire screen by holding the “Command”, “Shift”, and “3” buttons on your keyboard all at the same time. Double-click your screenshot, which can be found on your desktop. It’ll open in Preview. Here's a summary of all the keyboard shortcuts you can use to capture your screen in Mac OS X. Entire screen: To capture the entire screen, press Command-Shift-3. The screen shot will be automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop with the filename starting with “Picture” followed by a number, example Picture 1, Picture 2, and so. When you print screen on a Mac using the method described below, the screenshot image will be saved as a.png file on your Mac’s desktop. Step 1: Set up your Mac’s screen so that the information that you want to capture in the screenshot is visible.

If you need to take a screenshot on a Mac, you might be searching for a “Print Screen” button like on some keyboards.

But taking a screenshot on an Apple computer is a little bit different than taking a screenshot on a Windows machine. Print screen mac isn’t as simple as pushing one button.

On Windows PC, all you need to do is press the “PrtScr” or “Print Screen” key on your keyboard. After you press that key, Windows OS will automatically take a screenshot of your screen as a full-size, and save it to the clipboard.

In order to export or save this screenshot into an image file, you will need assistance from a picture editor program such as Microsoft Paint or Photoshop.

Just paste the content from the clipboard to the Paint program (or press Ctrl + V) and save it as a new image file.

But how do you take a screenshot on a Mac? This page will walk you through 3 keyboard shortcuts that will take different types of screenshots on your Mac.

Print Screen Options on Mac

On Mac OS X, there are more advanced print screen features. In fact, there are three methods you can use to take a screenshot of your Mac:

You can use any methods to capture a screenshot and save it to your desktop without the use of a photo editor (unlike on a PC).

There are three key combinations you can follow up to do a print screen on a Mac computer to take a screenshot.

Each keystroke has its job, to take a full-screen screenshot, a part of the screen or a screenshot of a particular application, depending on which key combination you use.

How do You Screenshot on a Mac – Take A Screenshot Of The Full Screen

If you want to take screenshots of your entire screen, use this shortcut:

Command + Shift + 3

Do a print screen on Mac OS X computer with a simple shortcut.

When you press Command + Shift + 3, your Mac computer with taking a screenshot of your whole screen and save it to your desktop.

If you are using more than one monitor, this shortcut will take a larger image file, which includes all connected monitors.

How

Take a Screenshot of Just Part of Your Screen

If you only want to take a screenshot of a small portion of the screen, use this keystroke:

Command + Shift + 4

When you press these keys on your keyboard, a selection box will show up, and allow you to choose a particular area of your Mac screen to capture. Then, it automatically saves it as a picture file to the desktop of your Mac.

So, here are the complete instructions to take a Mac screenshot of a selected area::

  1. Hit Command + Shift + 4 and then your mouse cursor will change to a crosshair pointer.
  2. Move your crosshair pointer to the position that you want to capture the screenshot.
  3. Drag to choose an area and then release the mouse button. The screenshot will automatically be captured.

While you are dragging the crosshair pointer, you also can hold Shift, Option, or Space to change the way you choose the part of your screen to take a screenshot.

If you have selected a part of your Mac screen, but you change your mind and want to choose another area, just press Esc to cancel.

Take A Screenshot Of A Specific Window

To take a screenshot of a particular application on your Mac OS X computer, just follow these instructions:

  1. Press these keys at the same time: Command + Shift + 4.
  2. After pressing these keys, Mac’s cursor will change to “+“.
  3. Next step, press Spacebar (or Space key), the cursor will turn itself into a camera icon.
  4. Just move the camera icon and then click on the application you want to take the screenshot.

Finding a Screenshot File

For all of the above methods, the image file will automatically save to your Mac’s desktop as a PNG file (as opposed to a JPG), with a name like “Screen Shot xx-xx-xx“. These “xx-xx-xx” digits were generated automatically according to the date and time when the screenshot was created.

List of screenshot files, which generated by Print Screen Mac function.

If you don’t want to clutter your desktop or Finder, you can change the default location where screenshots are saved using the Mac command terminal.

If you are running a newer operating system, like Mojave, the functions are a little more advanced, but the basic keystrokes are the same.

Looking for some additional functionality apart from the conventional print screen mac? Here are five best screen capture apps to help you take more advanced screengrabs on your Mac.

Try these apps, and maybe you will like to use them more than using keystrokes.

5/5(1 vote )

Taking screenshot is one of the most common things we do on our computers. It is known to all that “PrtSc”, “Win + PrtSc” or “Fn + PrtSc” are the keys to screenshot in Windows and “Command + Shift + 3/4” are the keys to capture screen on Mac. But do you know how to print screen on Mac running Windows since there is no “PrtSc” key on the Mac keyboard? If not, you can read this article to learn this trick.

How to Print Screen Windows on Mac with BootCamp

Use Keyboard Shortcuts

In fact, it is very easy to make a screenshot on Mac in Boot Camp. If you are using an Apple keyboard with numeric keypad or Apple Pro keyboard, you can press “F14” to take a screenshot of the full screen and “Option + F14” to capture an active window. If you are using an Apple USB & Wireless keyboard or MacBook Pro keyboard, you need to press “Fn + Shift + F11” to capture full screen and “Fn + Shift + Option + F11” to snapshot an active window. The screenshot is copied to the clipboard. You can go to Paint, paste the screenshot on the blank board and save it as an image file. This is the default way to print screen on Mac running Windows.

Pros: No need to install additional programs.

Cons: It’s awkward to press so many keys at the same time.

Utilize Screenshot Tools

Since you are running Windows OS, you can use third-party screenshot tools for Windows to screenshot on your Mac. Free Screenshot Capture is a wise choice. It is a light-weight online screenshot application. With this tool, you are able to capture full screen, active window and any specific region on the screen. In addition to taking screenshot, it also allows you to annotate the screenshot instantly, share the screenshot to social networks directly or upload it to the free Cloud space provided by the developer.

Here are the detailed steps for you to print screen Windows on Mac with this tool.

How To Use Print Screen In Mac Air

  • Navigate to screenshot.net, and click on the orange “Take Screenshot” button. Run Java applet to load this application.
  • When the application pops up, hit on the camera icon or press the hotkey “Ctrl + Q”. Then your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click, hold and drag your mouse to capture an area. And release your mouse to confirm the screenshot.
  • You can annotate the screenshot with lines, arrows, text and so on. After that, click the diskette button to save it to your local file. Alternatively, you can also upload it to the Cloud so that you can get links to embed the screenshot in forums and blogs.

It’s worth mentioning that this application also has a pro version which has 10 screenshot modes, including scrolling window screenshot, menu screenshot, polygon screenshot, etc. Aside from that, this pro version also comes with a robust image editor, a screen recorder and a task scheduler which allows you to take automatic screenshots. You can download this version to enjoy all those benefits now.

Pros: You can take, annotate, save/share/upload the screenshot within one interface.

Cons: The online version needs network.

Make Use of Windows Built-in Screenshot Utility

Snipping Tool is another way to screenshot Windows on Mac. To access this utility, just go to “Start > Accessories > Snipping Tool”. It has four screenshot modes for you to choose: Free-form Snip, Rectangular Snip, Window Snip and Full-screen Snip. Apart from taking screenshot, this tool provides simple annotations as well.

How To Print Screen On Macbook

Pros: You don’t need to install any programs on your Mac.

Cons: Editing options are limited.

Summary

This post gives you some feasible ways to print screen Windows on Mac. It is advisable that you adopt the second method of using Free Screenshot Capture. Because, other than taking screenshot, this program also provides many other useful functions like rich editing, direct sharing as well as uploading to free Cloud space.

How To Use Print Screen In Mac Desktop

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