Tutorial: Taking a Screenshot

Screenshots are useful for showing other people what your computer desktop looked like at a particular point in time. You will often notice screenshots in tutorials. Screenshots are also often used if you are trying to troubleshoot a computer over email, so the other party can see the specific error message or behavior on your computer.

If you are looking to create video versions of what's happening on your computer, see our article on Screen Recording in Mac OSX.

Mac OS X Screenshots

Press Cmd+Shift+3. You may hear a "snapshot" sound and a PNG file will be created on your Desktop with the filename "Picture" or "Screen Shot" followed by a number.
For more info about other types of screenshots, please refer to Apple Tutorial Site.

Windows Screenshots

Press the Print Screen button on your keyboard.
Launch your favorite image editor, create a new document, and click Edit Menu > Paste to insert the screenshot. Remember to save the document as a JPG or PNG file.