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Extend Mac OS X's Screenshots

Mac OS X has a variety of built in screenshot methods. Here's a look at a few that offer more versatility than the basic full-screen capture (Command-Shift-3):

• Press Command-Shift-4 and you'll get a crosshair cursor with which you can drag to select and capture a certain area of the screen.

• Press Command-Shift-4-Space to select the entire window that the cursor is over, clicking on the window will then capture it. The resulting screenshot will even get a nice drop shadow.

• Hold down the Space bar after dragging out a selection window to move your selection rectangle around on the screen.

• Hold down Shift after dragging out a selection to constrain the selection in either horizontal or vertical orientation, depending on the direction of your drag.

• Hold down Option after dragging out a selection to expand the selection window around a center point.

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Macs & Mac OS X | 09 Apr 2008 | Listen  | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

Take Control News: Find 200+ Tips in the Mac OS X Hints Superguide

by Adam C. Engst Send Email to Author

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The most useful pieces of advice about using your Mac are often short, focused tips that solve a particular problem or make a specific program work just the way you want. That's what you'll find in the "Macworld Mac OS X Hints Superguide, Leopard Edition," the latest ebook from our friends at Macworld. Written by the undisputed king of tips, Rob Griffiths, the ebook presents a cornucopia of over 200 tips to help you get the most out of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Culled from Rob's MacOSXHints.com site, and with contributions from other Macworld experts, the book's advice covers a wide range of topics and experience levels, from basic tips any Mac user can easily implement to power user tweaks that go way beyond the basics, employing Terminal, Automator, and AppleScript to maximize your Mac's mileage. The 70-page ebook is now available for $12.95 from the Take Control Books Web site, and a print version is also available for $19.95.

Rob covers a lot of territory, with tips relating to new Leopard features like Screen Sharing and Spaces, others that cover existing features like screen savers and keyboard shortcuts, and hardware-related tips for printing and working with discs. He also helps you get the most out of standard Apple applications, including Mail (find and remove large attachments from your mail store), iCal (learn how to add and work with URLs easily in events), Safari (want to invoke bookmarks with voice commands?), and iTunes (check out the AppleScript to update podcasts manually), as well as iChat, Preview, and Dashboard.

If you've wondered about using Unix commands in Terminal to customize your Mac beyond what the graphical interface offers, or if you've wanted to get more comfortable with Terminal, the book provides a nice foundation. It covers the basics of using Terminal and has a generous collection of tips sprinkled throughout that will get you typing (or pasting) simple command strings in order to tweak your Mac in useful and interesting ways. It also has info for those who are already comfortable with Terminal, covering new commands in Leopard, searching from the command line, and more.

 

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