How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac

Ever wish you could take a picture of something on your Mac's screen, like, the content of a certain website, photographs that can't be saved, or a chat conversation you want to remember forever? Well, Mac has it's very own built-in camera, and you can use it to grab a screenshot of anything that pops up on your screen. A screenshot - also known as a screencap - is a copy of exactly what is being displayed on your monitor when the picture is taken (called "capping). It's easy to do, and only takes a split second - here's how to take screenshot on a Mac:

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Set Your Screen Up for the Shot
   
   Before taking a screenshot, you should set up the shot - similar to the way you would set up a photograph before snapping a picture. If you are capping your desktop, then clear it off by exiting any running programs and closing any open windows. Be careful not to just minimize windows, unless you don't care if others can see what project you are currently working on or what websites you are currently surfing.
   
   If you are taking a screenshot of a website, navigate to the page you want to cap. Using your scrollbar, set the page to exactly where you want the screenshot to grab. A screenshot will only cap what is visible on your screen, so if you want to grab text that is further down a webpage than you are currently viewing, you aren't going to get it in the shot. Think of your monitor as the viewfinder of a camera; anything that you can't see on the viewfinder is going to be cut out of the shot.

2. Take the Screenshot
   
   Mac offers you more ways to take a screenshot than Windows does. This is great for grabbing only certain parts of a webpage, or customizing your screenshot. Here is a list of what you can cap and how to do it:

3. "Command" + "Shift" + "3"
   This will take a standard screenshot the same way "Print Screen" takes a screenshot on a Windows machine. This command takes a picture of whatever is on your monitor, and saves it to your clipboard. After taking a screenshot successfully, the screenshot will be saved to your desktop in .PNG format.

4. "Command" + "Control" + "Shift" + "3"
   
   This command does exactly as above, except instead of automatically saving the screenshot to your desktop, the cap is saved to your clipboard. Open up your paint program of choice, and you can then paste the screenshot into your paint program as a new document. You can either save it as is, or make changes to it before saving.

5. "Command" + "Shift" + "4"
   This command allows you to grab just a section of what's currently on your screen. After setting up your shot, hit the keys, and your cursor will change to a crosshair cursor. You can then drag a box across the screen to grab the portion of the screen that you want to cap. After outlining what you want to cap, release the mouse button. The screenshot will save and show up on your desktop in .PNG format.

6. "Command" + "Shift" + "4," then "Spacebar"
   
   With this command, you can take a picture of an application window. After hitting the spacebar, you will see your cursor turn into a camera. Move the camera to the application window that you want to take a screenshot of and it will be highlighted. When you've gotten the application window you want to save highlighted, click the left mouse button, and the screenshot will automatically save to your desktop as a .PNG file.