When writing this forum I often want to cut and paste from the monitor.  Both OS X and Windows 7 have easy and flexible ways to capture screen images.

Windows 7 Snipping

Windows 7 has a Snipping program that is opened by clicking on the start icon and typing “snipping” in the search field.  I open it and find I can clip the entire screen or select part of the screen to save using a rectangle tool or free form.  I can also select a particular window to save.

Once the clip appears, I can save it in several formats. Saving it to a PNG format probably providing the highest quality since it is a lossless compressed format.  I use JPEG for smaller files, but with less quality.

I find that one problem with the menu options is that I can’t capture a menu.  However, if I press Esc when the snipping tool is open, then press CTRL -> PRINT SCREEN, I can use the mouse to snip the menu.

For more details see:  http://www.windows7home.net/use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screen-shots-in-windows-7/ or http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/microsoft/ht/snippingtool.htm

OS X Screen Shots

In OS X there are also several screen save options:

For the entire screen:

• I press Command-Shift-3 to capture the entire screen automatically as a PNG file on my desktop.
• I press Command-Control-Shift-3 to place the entire screen on my clipboard so I can paste it into another program.

For partial Screen:

• I press Command-Shift-4 and use the cross-hair cursor and drag it around a selected area. When I release the mouse button, the screen shot automatically saves a PNG file on my desktop.

To capture a specific application window:

• I Press Command-Shift-4, then press the Spacebar. The cursor changes to a camera, and I can move it around the screen.  When I have the cursor over the window I want to capture, I click the mouse button and the screen shot saves a PNG file on my desktop.  If I add Control to the two shortcuts above, the screen shot is saved on the clipboard instead of saving it to the desktop.

GRAB App

Another method for capturing screen shots in Mac OS X is by using the bundled Apple utility, Grab, located in the Applications > Utilities folder. I use Grab when I need to include a cursor or a menu in your screen shot, or if I want to save my screen shot to TIFF format.

To use it I first go to Grab Preferences and select the cursor icon I want in my screen shot. Then I choose if I want the whole Window or a selected part of the window.  There is also a timed capture feature that allows me to set-up a shot and then the camera snaps the picture after 10 seconds.

For more details see: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/screencapturemac/ht/macscreenshot.htm

Summary

Both OS X and Windows 7 have reasonable screen capture options.  For me, there's no clear winner here.  In using them to illustrate blogs and forums, be sure to save them in png or tiff format that will give a higher resolution picture than jpeg.

Preview

The next topic in the series talks a bit about some problems with the Dell and iMac and how helpful Dell and Apple support is in resolving the problems.