how to – screenshot Yosemite

Last night I was on one of my fairly rare visits to the Yosemite OSX side of my Boot Camp MacBook Pro. I’d just completed an online transaction and, as I just plain do not trust all online e-tailers, was about to do my traditional final just-in-case record-keeping step – take a screenshot of the “Transaction Complete” page from the website I’d just spent hard-earned real money with. Then the thought struck me – “Uhmm, how do you do that?” – there’s no Print Screen key on Mac keyboards, dammit!! (I’ve never actually needed the screenshots, not once. Still do it every time though.)

And as it is my self-appointed job to know everything worth knowing, some research was required. The Windows keys for this task are remarkably simple, Prt Scr alone, Win key + Prt Scr or Alt + Prt Scr covers the choices. Mac, of course, had to do it differently. & this, this is another classic example of where Apple let themselves down, deliberately being different even if it costs their users – eg. Magic Mouse, gorgeous looking thing, but is it any good as a mouse? Not even. Anyway, I digress. Here’s what I found out –

So there are three types of screenshots that you can capture on Mac OS X Yosemite: Entire Desktop, Specific Area, Active Window.

Take A Screenshot Of An Entire Yosemite Desktop

Press Command + Shift + 3 and release. Done.

There’s now a new .png on your desktop, containing a picture of the desktop it’s now saved to.

But who really needs an entire desktop image? That’s a fairly rare requirement. read on…

Take A Screenshot Of A Specific Yosemite Desktop Area

Press Command + Shift + 4 and release. As soon as you release the keys, your mouse cursor turns into movable crosshairs.

Drag the cursor to the top left corner of the intended screenshot, then drag/hold the mouse over the area you want to screenshot. Now release the drag/hold. Done.

As with the full desktop screenshot, there’s a new .png on your desktop. It’s for you.

And probably the most useful of the set is the following…

Take a Screenshot of a Single Yosemite Window

Press and release Command + Shift + 4 then hit the spacebar. Now bring focus to the window you want captured by clicking your mouse inside it. Done.

Again, check your desktop for the newly-created .png file.

There you go, more stuff I have found out and shared with you. Lucky you.

One thought on “how to – screenshot Yosemite

  1. this is cool info to know thanks for this will be letting some people know xox

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