In Comparison: Screenshots
Another area in which Apple’s Mac OS X outshines Windows is in taking screenshots. Up until Vista, the only way to take screenshots in Windows was to press shift + print screen. This would capture the entire screen, including multiple monitors. (Correction: As Martin Polley pointed out to me, you can also use Alt + Print Screen in XP to capture the active window.) You could then paste it into Paint and save it as a file. For any other functionality, one would have to purchase an application. Vista certainly includes more functionality, but it requires launching the “Snipping Tool”, which is buried in the Accessories. The tool allows you to screenshot a window or random area of the screen, as well as the whole screen, but you then have to create a new document to put it in before you can do anything with it.
Apple has always approached screenshots mindful of how people are using them. The screenshot functions are accessed from key combinations. Command + Shift + 3 takes a screenshot of the entire screen, creating multiple images if there are multiple monitors. Command + Shift + 4 turns the cursor into crosshairs, allowing you to draw out a rectangle around the area you want to capture. X and Y coordinates are displayed with the cursor. If you want to capture a single window (or dialog, or panel, etc.), press the space bar to change from crosshairs to camera. Rolling over elements on the screen will highlight them, and a click will take the shot. Certainly, this requires learning the key commands, but it is much quicker than launching an application and having to deal with a GUI.
Screenshots are automatically saved to the desktop using a default naming convention (Picture 1, Picture 2…) as PNGs. Screenshots of individual windows are even given a transparent drop-shadow.
Quite simply, taking screenshots in Windows has always been, and continues to be, a laborious process. On the Mac, the screenshot functions stay out of your way, but are very quick when needed, and quite robust. When I need screenshots from a Windows application, I prefer to take them through the Remote Desktop client on my Mac.
