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Screen Capture

Overview

Both operating systems have the ability to capture your entire screen — or a portion of it — and save it to an image file.

Neither has the built-in capability of capturing live video off of your screen. However, Microsoft offers Windows Media Encoder as a free download, which supports screen capture to video. Apple does not offer any free software to capture video. OS X users who need screen capture to video can purchase Ambrosia Software's SnapzPro for $49.

Mac OS X

OS X provides 4 methods to create screen captures:

  1. Keyboard Shortcuts (see table below)

    All screen captures are saved in PNG format. Double-clicking a screen capture opens it in Preview; from there, you can save the screen capture to about a dozen different formats:

  2. Preview

    Create screen captures directly from the Preview application. Go to File > Grab, and choose from Selection, Window, or Timed Screen.

  3. Grab

    The Grab application offers even greater control over screen captures. Some of its features include timed screen grabs, the ability to select the type of cursor to display in the capture, and pre-selection of the output file format (TIF, JPEG, PDF, etc.).

  4. Use the screencapture command

    Invoke screen captures from the Unix command line using the screencapture command, which facilitates scripting of screen capture.

Windows XP

XP can capture either the entire screen or a specific window to the clipboard (see the shortcut keys below). Once taken, screen captures must be pasted into a document. If you wish to save the screen capture as its own file for later use, paste it into Paint, then save it from there (as a BMP, JPG, etc.).
Screen Captures and Windows Media Player

To take still captures of video in Windows Media Player, turn off Video Acceleration (under Options > Performance). Otherwise, the area in which the video is playing will come out solid black in the capture.

Screen capture keyboard shortcuts

Task Mac OS X Windows XP
Screen to file Shift-Command-3
Screen to clipboard Ctrl-Shift-Command-3 Print Screen
Crosshair screen selection to file Shift-Command-4
Crosshair screen selection to clipboard Ctrl-Shift-Command-4
Window on screen to file * Hit spacebar after invoking Shift-Command-4, and the cursor will turn into a camera. Then, click a window to capture it.
Window on screen to clipboard * Hit spacebar after invoking Ctrl-Shift-Command-4, and the cursor will turn into a camera. Then, click a window to capture it. Alt-Print Screen
Menu to file First, click the appropriate menu to invoke it, then (as above), hit spacebar after invoking Shift-Command-4. When the cursor turns into a camera, click the menu.
Menu to clipboard First, click the appropriate menu to invoke it, then (as above), hit spacebar after invoking Ctrl-Shift-Command-4. When the cursor turns into a camera, click the menu.
* You can use this same method on OS X to capture the dock, specific dock icons, the main menu bar, and many other interface elements.

Conclusion

Though OS X unfortunately lacks a free method of capturing video, its abilities to capture still images are very impressive. OS X can capture specific interface elements or the entire screen to either a file or the clipboard. You can even use a crosshair selection tool to capture a specific portion of the screen. Furthermore, OS X's screen capture is "smart" — captured menus, for instance, lose their transparency so that they are more readable, and dock icons will automatically be captured at their largest possible size (128 x 128 pixels).

Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 3 (6)

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