Capturing Screen ImagesIn many instances, capturing an image of what is happening on your Mac's screen is useful. One example is if you are writing instructions about how to do a particular task, such as when you are writing your own book about Mac OS X. Another is when you want to capture an error message or some other anomaly you want to be able to explain to someone (for example, you might want to capture the image of an error dialog box so you can email it when you try to get technical support). With Mac OS X, you have two built-in ways to capture screen images. One is to use keyboard commands. The other is to use the Grab application. Capturing Screen Images with Keyboard ShortcutsMac OS X includes keyboard commands you can use to capture desktop images. After you capture an image, it is stored on your desktop as a PDF and is called Picture X, where X is a sequential number. You have the following three options:
TIP To choose not to capture an image after you have pressed these key combinations, press Escape. If you want to save an image to the Clipboard so you can easily paste it into a document, hold down Control while you press the keys for the kind of screenshot you want to take. Capturing Screen Images with GrabMac OS X includes the Grab application. As its name implies, using Grab, you can "grab" an image of your Mac's desktop. There are several options you can use to capture a specific image. To capture a desktop image follow these steps:
The images you capture with Grab are just like images you create in other ways. You can open them in image-editing applications, preview them in Preview, print them, and so on. TIP Grab's capturing capabilities are provided to the OS so that other applications can use them. For example, if you are working in a Carbon or Cocoa application, you can easily grab an image of its screen by selecting the Services command from that application's menu. Then, select Grab and select the type of grab from the menu. When you release the mouse button, the image you captured is displayed. How it is displayed depends on the application from which you captured it. For example, if you grab an image while you are using TextEdit, a Rich Text Format (RTF) file is created. If you grab an image while using Preview, that image appears in the Pasteboard window. NOTE
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