Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Name

screencapture

Synopsis

screencapture [-i [-s | -w | -W] | -m] [-x] { -c | pathname }

Saves the contents of the screen to a PDF file or to the Clipboard. Unless you are using the -i option to start an interactive screen capture, the contents of the entire display are captured.

Options

-c

Saves screenshot to the Clipboard for later pasting.

-i

Initiates interactive screen capture using these keys:

• The mouse is used to select a region of the screen to capture.

• Pressing the spacebar toggles between this mouse selection mode and a window selection mode, in which clicking on a window captures the portion of the screen taken up by that window.

• Pressing the Control key saves the screenshot to the Clipboard.

• Pressing the Escape key cancels the interactive screen capture.

-m

Captures only the main display, if multiple displays are in use.

-s

Disables window selection mode in an interactive screen capture; only mouse selection is allowed.

-w

Disables mouse selection mode in an interactive screen capture; only window selection is allowed.

-W

Starts an interactive screen capture in window selection mode instead of mouse selection mode.

-x

Disables sound effects.

pathname

The name of a file in which to save the screenshot. You should terminate the filename with a .pdf extension.