iOS Screenshots

To take a screenshot on iOS is one of the simplest things to do. At any point simply press the sleep/wake button and the home button at the same time. The screen will flash white and you will hear the camera shutter sound. The image will have now been saved to your camera roll.

Grab

Mac OS X ships with a tool called Grab. This tool can be used to capture images of your screen to be saved and shared with others. To open it, just search for Grab from either Launchpad or Spotlight, or find it in your /Applications/Utilities folder. This is the grab icon:

There are four different ways to capture images with grab. These are available under the Capture menu, and as always there are a number of shortcuts associated with these options:

Shortcut		Name	Description
⇧	⌘A	Selection	Drag over an area of the screen you wish to grab.
⇧	⌘W	Window	Select a window from an application you wish to grab.
	⌘Z	Screen	Select a screen you wish to grab.
⇧	⌘Z	Timed	Select a screen you wish to grab after a 10 second delay. This delay can be used to set up the screen in a particular way prior to the picture being taken, e.g. opening a menu at the top.

One you have grabbed the screen shot you want, simply select File - Save (⌘S) to save the image somewhere on your computer, or Edit - Copy (⌘C) to place the image on your clipboard so you can paste it elsewhere. If you prefer to use shortcuts, why not try using the global shortcut keys for capturing screenshots.

Screenshots

If you want to take a screenshot on your Mac it's incredibly easy if you know a few simple shortcuts.

Shortcut				Name	Description
	⇧	⌘3		Capture all screens and save image to desktop
	⇧	⌘4		Capture a region and save image to desktop
	⇧	⌘4	␣	Capture a window and save image to desktop
⌃	⇧	⌘3		Capture all screen and place the image on the clipboard
⌃	⇧	⌘4		Capture a region and place the image on the clipboard
⌃	⇧	⌘4	␣	Capture a window and place the image on the clipboard

If shortcuts are not your thing, why not capture your screenshots using the built in Grab application.

Shortcut symbols

Throughout this blog there will be a number of Mac OS X shortcut symbols used. Here's a helpful guide to what they all mean:

Symbol	Keyboard	Description
⌘	cmd ⌘	Command
⇧	⇧	Shift
⇪	⇪	Caps lock
⌃	ctrl	Control
⌥	alt ⌥	Option
⇥	⇥	Tab
⎋	esc	Escape
⌫	←	Backspace
fn	fn	Function
␣		Space