In Part 1 of this two part series I talked about using the keyboard shortcuts for taking screenshots. Part 2 of this series will deal with using Grab, an application/utility built into Mac OSX.

Grab can be found in your Applications folder under the Utilities folder. An easier way of launching is simply typing Grab into Finder and selecting it from the list that appears. There are other ways of launching this as well but I won’t get into them here. Find a way that suits you best.

The main features you’ll use of Grab is found in the Capture menu item found in the menu bar (these options also have keyboard shortcuts which can be seen beside the option).

As you can see the first three options are similar to the options available to you from the keyboard shortcuts. Because of this I do not think they need any more explanation here. The keyboard shortcuts change while Grab is launched but essentially do the same job. The difference is Grab has a window that opens up letting you know you are taking a screenshot and gives you some instructions on what you should do.

Two other main differences between Grab and the general shortcuts are that Grab puts the screenshot into it’s own window; the file is not saved to the Desktop or to the clipboard. It is up to you to decide what you want to do with the screenshot from the window it appears in. The other difference is that you have the option of selecting Grab to also capture the mouse pointer and the type of pointer that it will capture. To enable this option you will have to select it from the Preferences menu found under Grab in the menu bar.

This brings us to the last option on the Capture menu - Timed Screen. Timed Screen is what definitely sets Grab apart from the general keyboard shortcuts that most of us should be used to. It is also one of the main screen capture techniques that I use for grabbing screens for this site. By selecting Timed Screen from the Capture menu a window will appear with the option to Start The Tiimer and this will start a ten second countdown. When the countdown finishes anything that appears on the screen will be captured into the image.

Using this technique is how I am able to get screenshots of open menus and different elements that are not set windows or screens. This is also how you would capture the mouse pointer that you set using the Preferences menu.

Other Screenshot methods:
In the comments to Part 1, fcodc from Mac Recon mentioned a widget called Screenshot Plus which he uses for the majority of his screenshots. I have yet to use this widget so try it out for yourself to see what it’s capable of — I will try to experiment with it soon and post my findings.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.