Are you new to Mac and are looking for the Print Screen key? Stop looking, most probably you won’t find it. But there are some combinations of keys that will do the same thing and a bit more.
I had never used a Mac to do design or programming work, until I got an awesome Mac Pro with an Apple Cinema HD Display 30” Flat panel. It was nothing compared to the Dell Optiplex GX260 with a 15” flat screen monitor which I had been using for the past 3 years. I was immediately hooked on my new Mac (well, it’s not really “mine” because they own it here at work, but I will call it mine for practical reasons and also to boost my self-esteem, so leave me alone!). I just felt like a kid with a new toy.
o it came the time when I wanted to execute something similar to the Print Screen function on a Windows PC so I could paste an image onto the recently loaded Photoshop CS3. I couldn’t find anything alike on MY new Mac keyboard! I didn’t want to go back to the Dell PC, execute a Print Screen, send it to my pen drive and then open it on MY new Mac. I knew there had to be something similar on MY new Mac, I just knew it. So I searched the internet, ‘til I found it, I knew MY new Mac wouldn’t disappoint me.
I was instructed to Hold down Apple key + Shift + 3
I went back to Photoshop. I thought the screenshot was in the clipboard already and the Paste option would be available. So I went Edit > ???
The Paste option was grayed out! Perplexed, I tried it again, and again, and again, and again, a total of 7 times. I scratched my head. I said to myself: “Myself… Am I doing something wrong or is there something wrong with the instructions I found?”
WATCHOUT!
The image won’t go to the Clipboard when you execute a screen capture. Instead, a PNG file will be saved on your desktop and you will be able to see the screen capture thumbnail.
Turns out different webpages I found on the internet instructed me to do the same thing. So obviously I was doing something wrong. After scratching my head yet 3 more times, I found out the instructions I found online weren’t wrong and I hadn’t done anything incorrect either.
When you run the aforementioned command, a PNG file is saved on the right side of your desktop. In case you have several windows opened up and you run the Print Screen Mac command you might not see the files in your desktop. So I hope you read these paragraphs and save yourself some confusion.
Without further ado…
Screen capture the whole screen in Mac OS X
- Hold down Apple key+Shift+3
- Release all
- Use your mouse to click on the screen
Screen capture a portion of the screen in Mac OS X
- Hold down Apply key+Shift+4 (you will see your cursor change)
- Release all
- Click and drag your mouse cursor to select the portion of the screen you want to capture
Today, I was trying to make a copy a MySQL database that resides in my laptop with Windows Vista. I ran the mysql dump command but I got an error: “Access is denied”.