Take screenshots from the command line

More Mac Sites:
Macworld
MacUser
iPhone Central

Pick of the Week - Nov 10 [Show all picks]
Path Finder 5 - A feature-laden Finder replacement

12,000 hints and counting!

Sat, Aug 24 2002 at 9:55PM PDT • Contributed by: NikWest

There is a new utility in Jaguar which allows you to take screenshot with a Terminal command. The command is /usr/sbin/screencapture. Just type screencapture and hit "enter" in the Terminal for a list of options.

•

Currently 0.00 / 5
1
2
3
4
5

(0 votes cast)

[11,236 views]

Hint Options

Take screenshots from the command line | 9 comments | Create New Account

Click here to return to the 'Take screenshots from the command line' hint

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: bbum on Sat, Aug 24 2002 at 11:40PM PDT

See this brief article for a full description of all of the changes to the screen capture features in OS X. All of the command line features are available without using the command line!

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: Jacco Rens on Sun, Aug 25 2002 at 2:21AM PDT

but how do we change de default format (PDF) in to something else?

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: dim ben on Sun, Aug 25 2002 at 10:53AM PDT

I found this tip in a newsgroup:

"You can change the screenshot format with the string

< defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleScreenShotFormat JPEG >

in the Terminal. Log-out, re log-in required to change the format."

But I didn't try it out (don't have 10.2. yet). I assume you can use TIFF or PICT, too.

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: batmanppc on Thu, Aug 29 2002 at 10:44AM PDT

Doesn't seem to work in Jaguar

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: adriaant on Thu, Aug 29 2002 at 10:12PM PDT

I did a "screencapture -w -W -i ~/Desktop/capture.jpg" (note the .jpg extension) and a capture of my selected window was saved as a JPG.

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: hombre on Thu, Oct 17 2002 at 2:22PM PDT

When I tried "screencapture -w -W -i ~/Desktop/capture.jpg", I got a pdf file with a .jpg extension, i.e., it was not viewable until I changed the extension to pdf.

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: rocteur on Sun, Oct 27 2002 at 3:51PM PST

And this does not work, you have to rename it to .pdf to view it..

Anyone had any luck changing the format..

Much more than just command line...
Authored by: father2a-f on Mon, Dec 8 2003 at 7:30PM PST

Try this (only works in 10.3, though):


$ screencapture -S /tmp/screengrab.pdf ; sips -s format png /tmp/screengrab.pdf --out /tmp/screengrab.png

You can change the format type to tiff or jpeg, as well (e.g., ... format jpeg ... screengrab.jpg). sips may have other formats it supports, but I haven't tried but these. Type sips --help for more info.

Seems worthy of a tip of its own...
Authored by: robg on Sun, Aug 25 2002 at 10:58AM PDT

And so it shall be...

-rob.

Search

From our Sponsor...

User Functions

Don't have an account yet? Sign up as a New User
Lost your password?

What's New:

Hints

3 new Hints in the last 24 hours

Comments last 2 days

Links last 2 weeks

No recent new links

What's New in the Forums?

The Editor's Corner...

Here are some of my (robg) other projects...

•	The Robservatory My blog - Macs, tech, etc.
•	Mac OS X Power Hound The best of Hints in print
•	Inside iWork An iWork training DVD
•	Macworld Column, features, online...

Hints by Topic

News from Macworld

The macosxhints Poll

iPad_poll_#1

Other polls | 7,013 votes | 76 comments

Visit other IDG sites: