How to grab a screenshot on a Mac, PC, iPhone, and Android

There are as many ways to take a screenshot as there are devices.

|
Pawel Kopczynski
An Apple iPhone 4s and Samsung Galaxy S.

Capturing what's on a computer screen and saving it for later – often called a screenshot – can be a really helpful way to archive online order confirmations, grab a single frame from a family video, or show your company's tech staff what exactly is going wrong with your computer.

Every device handles screenshots a little differently, so here's a quick how-to guide.

Apple computers: Macs allow for two different kinds of screenshots.

You can snap an image of the entire screen, including every visible window, all of the menu bars, and even the position of your cursor. Doing this is easy. Hold down the Apple, Shift, and 3 keys all at the same time. You'll hear the sound of a camera shutter, and a new image file (your screenshot) will appear on the desktop. The shot is now yours to archive, e-mail, or print.

If you don't want to capture the entire screen, Apple also lets you take a screenshot of just a section of the screen. This takes a few extra steps. Start by holding down the Apple, Shift, and 4 keys. The mouse cursor will turn into a cross hair, signifying that it's ready to take your screenshot. Click once in the top-left corner of what you'd like to capture and click a second time in the bottom-right corner. You'll hear the same shutter snap, and the image file will appear on the desktop.

Windows XP and 7: To take a screenshot of everything that appears on screen, press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. Unlike Apple, this will not create a new image file. Instead, you need to open Paint or another image-editing program and select Paste from the File menu. Your screenshot will appear, and you can then save the image however you like.

Windows 8: You can still use the trick listed above, but Microsoft added an additional way to take a screenshot. Press the Windows and Print Screen keys at the same time. This creates an image file automatically, so there's no need to open and paste into a separate program. Windows 8 saves screenshots in the Pictures folder, filed under Screenshots.

Android: Since there are many different kinds of Android phones, there are also many different ways to take a screenshot on one. Some phonemakers built in simple ways to take screenshots. Others made it rather obtuse.

Google streamlined the process with Android Version 4.0, which came out in late 2011. (You can check which version you have by opening Settings and selecting About Phone.) If you're using Version 4.0 or later, press the Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time. The phone will save your image in the Screenshot section of the Gallery app.

iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch: Click the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time. The screen will flash white, confirming that the process worked. You can find your new screenshot in the Photos application, under Camera Roll.

For more on how technology intersects daily life, follow Chris on Twitter @venturenaut.

The original version of this article ran in the February 4 issue of the Christian Science Monitor magazine.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to How to grab a screenshot on a Mac, PC, iPhone, and Android
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Tech/2014/0102/How-to-grab-a-screenshot-on-a-Mac-PC-iPhone-and-Android
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe