The other day I needed to capture part of my Mac screen for something or other. After looking up the chord (I always forget it: Cmd-Shift-3!) I hit it and the very satisfying snapshot sound played. [1] And as normal I saw the image captured to a file ('Picture 1') on my desktop ...and then I saw another one, labeled 'Picture 2', with the contents of my other monitor. Each graphic had its own resolution too. Neat!
When I first started this entry it was about how, except for that obscure key combo, OS X makes this easy compared to XP. But then I realized that I rarely do full-screen captures in XP, it's typically a single window (Alt-PrintScreen), and I don't think I've ever done a full-screen with multiple monitors.
So I snapped the full-screen: no clicky sound, but for my limited purposes I think I like XP's version better. Even though it captures to the clipboard instead of straight to a file. Instead of splitting the desktop image into two separate files it merges them into one. Since my monitor and laptop don't have the same resolution (1280x1024 x 1400x1050) there's a little black bar at the bottom of the monitor to compensate for the difference.
There's likely a way to do this on OS X too -- in fact, I'd be surprised if there isn't. But this was a case where XP surprised me, and that doesn't happen very often.
[1] I hope whoever created that sound gets some cash, since it seems to be the same one that plays on my phone whenever I take a picture.
Posted from cwinters.com; read original
Re:yes, there's a way...
lachoy on 2005-12-02T21:39:02
I think the OS X is more flexible too -- AFAIK, XP only has Ctrl/Alt-PrintScreen to capture fullscreen or a single window, but being able to capture a region means you can grab background areas in one shot instead of grabbing everything then cropping. But my OP is a "common case A is easier on Foo than Bar" and still worth mentioning.Re:yes, there's a way...
ziggy on 2005-12-08T15:43:43
I prefer the OSX way to do it as well.
I've been using these boxes for longer than I care to admit, and if I've needed to take a dozen screen shots, it's a lot. But I've never forgotten Cmd-Shift-3 and Cmd-Shift-4, because it's always been that way, or at least it has been for about the last 21 years since the 128K was released.;-)
Yet there's a nicely labeled "Print Scrn" button on PC/Win* keyboards, but I can never remember the magic incantation to use it. Go figure.
