What is known as “Print Screen” in the Windows world is called screen captures or screenshots in Mac OS X.
When windows user get infront of mac and ask you: “Why is there no Print Screen button for Mac?”, show him this HowTo!
There is no ‘Print Screen’ button on a Mac keyboard, instead of hitting a “Print Screen” button, you’ll hit one of several keyboard combination shortcuts to perform a specific action, depending on the exact screen capture action you want taken. This is both easier and much more powerful, given that there are ultimately six unique options to perform variations of the screen print.
You can use any of these commands to take screenshots directly in Mac OS X Finder or any running applications:
- Command+Shift+3: takes a screenshot of the full screen (or screens if multiple monitors), and save it as a file to the desktop
- Command+Shift+4: brings up a selection box so you can specify an area to take a screenshot of, then save it as a file to the desktop
- Command+Shift+4, then spacebar, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window only and saves it as a file to the desktop
- Command+Shift+4 brings up a selection box so you can specify an area to take a screenshot of, then hit and hold Spacebar and click to drag the box
- Command+Control+Shift+3: take a screenshot of the entire screen (screens if multiple monitors), and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
- Command+Control+Shift+4, then select an area: takes a screenshot of selection and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
- Command+Control+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window and saves it to the clipboard for pasting
More tutorials about screenshots:
How To Auto-Upload Screenshots With Dropbox & Easily Share Them
How to Change the Screen Capture File Format in OS X 10.9 Mavericks
How To Change the Screen Shot Save File Location in OS X 10.9 Mavericks
How to Disable Drop Shadows from Appearing on Window Screen Shots in OS X 10.9 Mavericks
How To Take a Screen Shot via Terminal (Command Line) on OS X 10.9 Mavericks
tzs says
There is also the “Grab” application in /Applications/Utilities. It also can capture screens, windows, or selections. In addition it can do a time screen capture, which is useful if you need to capture menus.