Change screenshot format in Tiger

Submitted by Ivan on Tue, 2005-12-13 12:33.

A collegue of mine running Mac OS X 10.4 wanted to change the default .png format of the screenshot back to the 10.3 default .pdf.

Although there is no control panel for this setting yet, but luckily it's very simple to achieve using the Terminal. Just open Applications/ Utilities/ Terminal.app and paste in the following command to the command line and press return:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf

You can revert to png by entering the same command and substituting pdf with png. You can also also use jpg and gif as possible extensions with this command.

You need to log out and back in (or simply restart) for this command to take effect.

Also, read about the the full list of screenshot commands and if you're still on Jaguar and want formats other than pdf you can use a Folder action script.

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But Why?

Submitted by iancorey on Tue, 2005-12-13 13:14.

I don't understand why someone would prefer the PDF screenshot. Anybody?

no idea

Submitted by Jammo on Tue, 2005-12-13 13:18.

Personal preference?

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Yeah, but is he gay? PDF is

Submitted by mck on Tue, 2005-12-13 15:29.

Yeah, but is he gay? PDF is for documents and not images. I was very glad when they finally changed it to PNG in 1O.4

careful mate

Submitted by Jammo on Tue, 2005-12-13 15:51.

cut down on the insults... you might want to change a word there ;)

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wups...can't edit it :)

Submitted by mck on Tue, 2005-12-13 15:53.

wups...can't edit it :)

I might have found a drupal

Submitted by mck on Tue, 2005-12-13 15:56.

I might have found a drupal bug here. I can edit the post above but not the one in question...something to fix in CB 3 :)

(edit: to be exact, I can only edit my latest post)

He said nothing wrong, just

Submitted by Ivan on Tue, 2005-12-13 18:48.

He said nothing wrong, just asked an irrelevant question. I won't edit.

I can give dozens of

Submitted by Ivan on Tue, 2005-12-13 18:47.

I can give dozens of reasons, but how about client prefers pdf?

For screenshots? Problem

Submitted by mck on Wed, 2005-12-14 13:54.

For screenshots? Problem with PDF's is that they can't be viewed in a list in Preview, and if you want to publish them on the web, you have to transfer the format. I can't think of an app other than Photoshop that can open picture PDF's.

You know how it is. If

Submitted by Ivan on Wed, 2005-12-14 19:34.

You know how it is. If clients wants pdf, you give him a pdf. You not gonna start convincing him that it doesn't make sense or whatever...

Because there are still tons

Submitted by notaclone on Tue, 2006-03-07 15:35.

Because there are still tons of systems out there that can't read PNG! My accountant's PC, for one.
JPG is lossy so GAG. BMP - still think some will have a problem with.
So I just now switched to PDF. I hate it, but I'm sick of people saying, oh yeah, you sent me something but I couldn't read it.

...or may I suggest....

Submitted by Jammo on Tue, 2005-12-13 13:23.

Snaps Pro X gives you a huge range of options for screenshots, including what format, resize, thumbnails, cursor visible or not, and watermarking.. the list goes on

Its not free but its definatly worth the money I've found.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/

and for a few extra pennies, you get the screen movie capture

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Try this

Submitted by JimD on Tue, 2005-12-13 14:13.

If you hate messing with the terminal, you can use ShotChoice to change the format to PDF, PNG, BMP, PSD, TIF or JPG format with the click of a button and a log out.

I found a great widget

Submitted by train on Tue, 2005-12-13 16:46.

So you might already know about this, but there is a GREAT widget for this purpose.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/screenshotplus.html

It let's you chose the file format (.pdf for you Ivan or .png for Mackie), if you want to capture the whole screen or just a window (or just draw a box to capture).

I have found it very useful, and it is free.

Feh on the Screenshot Plus

Submitted by Phosphor on Tue, 2005-12-13 18:50.

Feh on the Screenshot Plus widget. It's redundant, and kinda lame. Read my commentary about it here, along with a suggestion for a better alternative:

http://www.tuaw.com/2005/11/21/widget-watch-screenshot-plus/

Screen Capture Image Type

Submitted by Filipe Sa on Tue, 2005-12-13 16:46.

You can also use SCIT 1.0 to change the format. But you don't have to log out. Put it in you dock and just select the format you want to use and start capturing.
You have all these formats to use: BMP, GIF, JPG, JP2, PCT, PDF, PNG, PSD and TIFF.