Capturing Screen Shots

Screen captures, sometimes known as “screenshots,” are useful for adding graphics to your manuals, Web sites, tutorials, PowerPoints, etc.

Here are two free tools, one for Macs and one for PCs, that will allow you to capture all or portions of what you see on your computer monitor.

Mac—specifically OS X users:

Grab is a free tool that comes with every Mac using OS X as its operating system.  It’s found under the <Go> menu.  Select <Utilities><Grab>.

Your screen won’t change, but you will notice a different set of menus at the top.  Under the <Capture> menu, you have choices of <Selection>, <Window>, <Screen>, and <Timed Screen>.  I exclusively use <Selection> because it allows me to drag my cursor over the portion of my screen that I want to capture.

Grab then produces a window with the untitled screen capture.  You name it and save it.  The result is a .tif file that can be used or edited for print.  If you want to use it for the Web, you will need to open it in a graphics program like iPhoto, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to edit it or save it as a .jpg, .gif, or .png format.

PC

There are several FREE screen capture programs available.  ScreenHunter 4.0 is a popular one; in fact, PC World magazine calls it the "BEST dang screen capture utility ever!"  You can download it from Wisdom software.

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Another old favorite is ZapGrab from www.lysator.liu.se/~zap/zapgrab.html.

ScreenHunter works similarly to many screen capture programs and is quite simple to use.  After it is launched, you have the choices to capture a rectangle by a dragging the cursor, the active window, or the full screen. 

The captured screenshot automatically appears on your desktop as a .bmp file.  If you need to change the .bmp file to a different format or edit it, you will need to open it in a graphics program like Paint, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

Note:  The graphics included with this Tech Tip were captured with Grab.