Live data from Hacker News

macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

sal.dev

271–280 of 332 posts

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#271

Windows-only recommendation so this is only somewhat related - but if you want a powerful, (mostly) well-thought-out, (seemingly) lightweight screenshot taker + editor on Windows, do have a look at ShareX[1]. It's completely free and you can tweak various workflows and map them to key combinations. I've had a "manual screenshot -> optional editing -> upload to imgur/save to clipboard" workflow bound to a mouse button…

Windows has the built in Snipping Tool which is quite similar to what macOS has: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-snipping-too...

Windows + Shift + S is what I used daily on Windows. The screenshot is saved to the clipboard and can be pasted straight into your chat app.

I have Command + Shift + 4 configured to save to clipboard aswell now.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#273
post #45

Here is a key sequence I use very often. It takes a screenshot of a chosen window without the window's shadow. - First, type command + shift + 4 (the mouse pointer turns into crosshair). - Then type the space bar (the crosshair turns into a camera icon). - Hover the mouse pointer (a camera icon now), to highlight the chosen window. - Finally, hold the option key and click. This sounds like a lot of steps but it becom…

I think Mac OS has the most inaccessible hidden hotkey shortcuts out of every OS I've used. Even essential functions like showing hidden files in a directory is uniquely done through an hidden shortcut in Mac OS.

Just hours ago complained to a friend about how arcane some things in macOS are. Short of just pressing random key combinations, there is no way to discover that it's possible to paste/type a path into the standard file selection dialog.

(It's cmd-shift-g to get the text entry to appear, or simply forward slash to get it to appear with the slash already entered. Also, it says "Go to Folder", but if you direct it to a file, it will navigate to the folder the file is in and also select the file)

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add in the control key in the shortcut above and the screenshot will go to the clipboard instead of a file. Useful for pasting a screenshot into something like Messages or Slack. Also there's no need to hold down Option when clicking. You can however hit Esc to cancel the screenshot action.

after copying to clipboard, you can also paste it into an empty preview window by hitting ctrl-N (with preview in the foreground). you can paste additional clippings from the clipboard as impromptu layers that you can drag around on top of the first image. in this way, folks (e.g., product managers) can quickly compose a mockup using components from a pre-existing UI without opening up photoshop/pixelmator/affinity.

Another option is when you press Command+Shift+5 select Options. From there select to Open in Preview. From then on any screenshot will open in preview automatically.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#275
If your screenshots are intended for documents, don't change the format to JPEG. Depending on the document (e.g. a PDF file) that compression can happen at a later stage. You can always compress a PNG into a JPEG (it's a lossy operation), but once it's done, you can't come back.

I often see JPEG screenshots in student reports (but not only), and they look really bad, as most of the time those are plots, drawings, and present very visible JPEG artefacts (e.g. colored noise around lines and text).

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If screenshots are a part of the daily workflow, changing the setting makes everything easier

Wish I could change copy/paste to always work without copying style.

Really wish this was the default, with an option to turn on "paste with formatting". It'd be interesting to see with telemetry how many users choose that.

FWIW, in my many decades of using computers, I've never once wanted to paste with styles as whatever app is getting pasted into inevitably (without exception, like 100% of the time) "guesses" the formatting incorrectly.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and adds screen recording functionality as a video

If only it grabbed the audio too. Would have been a lifesaver. All the apps that do this (that I found) are cr*p or super pricey.

Quicktime Player has audio in the grab

I feel like the screengrab ui also has it too

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#278

Oh my goodness thank you so much macOS for giving us a set of awesome screenshot tools and a way to edit them immediately in Preview.app. (Capture to clipboard, then command-N in Preview defaulting to new-from-clipboard.) It’s so blisteringly effective to grab a portion of the screen, draw on it, copy the whole thing again and paste it to a coworker in chat or a task tool. I recently discovered that with my trusty Lo…

I never found screenshotting on macOS intuitive. Using ShareX on Windows is like night and day. No need to memorize different shortcuts for each kind of screenshot. Just a single shortcut to enter screenshot mode. Then it's * left click to capture full screen * hover over a window and left click to capture a specific window * click and drag to capture a region * right click to cancel There's also annotation and drawi…

When I boot into Windows and want to snip a portion of the screen I am going into a menu and opening a dedicated UI program (snipping tool). Then I manually save it to the desktop again through menus. Then I can access the snip. It's insanity compared to what I do on macOS.

CMD+SHIFT+5 also gives you clear options to "tap to do X" like you say.

Annotation directly yes, that is nice. And I know some people dislike the "floating screenshot in corner" feature of macOS, but if you allow it to start you get instant annotation right after taking a screenshot without having to open the IMO clunky preview app.

There are also other 3rd party tools for annotation for macOS that can pipe together flows, probably as advanced to what you mention.

> Using ShareX on Windows is like night and day.

Because you are literally comparing a dedicated tool to a built in implementation (which I kind of feel you have not explored all that well lately).

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s so blisteringly effective to grab a portion of the screen, draw on it, copy the whole thing again and paste it to a coworker in chat or a task tool. You can make it even faster by cutting out the Preview step. When the thumbnail of the screenshot appears in the lower-right corner of the screen, click it, and then you can use Markup to annotate the image right there, and then share it as needed. Since I don't hav…

> When the thumbnail of the screenshot appears in the lower-right corner of the screen, click it What's this app called? I'm embarrassed to admit I can't tell, even after trawling activity monitor.

Not sure if I am missing something. But it is the default implementation in macOS. Just make sure "show floating thumbnail" is turned on (CMD+SHIFT+5 then click options).

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#280
post #224

Screenshot folder was badass! Set it up ASAP!

If you want another tip, put your Downloads folder there as well. Easy access to all files recently downloaded, which you probably want to do something with. Airdropped files also end up there which is nice.
Post reply on HN