How to copy the screen capture (cmd+shift+4) directly onto the clipboard?

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fthnm2005 Author

Level 1

9 points

How to copy the screen capture (cmd+shift+4) directly onto the clipboard?

I learned that using the cmd+shift+4 allows to capture a selection of the window, HOWEVER this just saves it on the desktop and I have to go to the desktop, open the picture, copy it and then place it on my Word document. This is certainly doable for one or two things, but when you are doing dozens of these it gets terribly annoying. I hope I am missing something here or it is possible to customize it through settings. If so, how? Please help.

Posted on Jul 7, 2014 3:51 PM

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Answer 1

stedman1

Level 10

265,522 points

Jul 7, 2014 3:54 PM in response to fthnm2005

Take picture of the entire screen	Cmd-Shift-3
Take picture of a selected area	Cmd-Shift-4 and Drag over an area While dragging: Hold Spacebar to move selected area. Hold Shift to change size in one direction only (horizontal or vertical) Hold Option for center-based resizing.
Take picture of a specific window/object	Cmd-Shift-4, then press Spacebar, then Click on the window/object
Hold Control with any of the follow keystrokes to copy the screenshot to the clipboard instead of making a file.

From: http://www.danrodney.com/mac/

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Answer 2

Jim-Mac

Level 1

13 points

Jul 7, 2014 7:28 PM in response to fthnm2005

You're right .. Cmd-Shift-4 lets you define a rectangular marquee anywhere on your screen with your mouse - when you release the mouse, a file containing the captured rectangle is placed as a JPG on your Desktop. If you add the Ctrl key to the others (Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-4) the captured image is placed into the Clipboard. If you open Preview and open the captured image from the Clipboard (either Cmd-N, or File > New from Clipboard) the captured image will appear. When you File > Save it in Preview, the default location will be the Desktop and the default format will be PNG, which you can change to several formats, including JPG.

Here's the set of screen capture commands:

Cmd-Shift 3 = Capture the screen to a file
Cmd Ctrl Shift 3 = Capture the screen to the clipboard
Cmd-Shift 4 = Select an area to be captured to a file
Cmd Ctrl Shift 4 = Select an area to be captured to the clipboard
Cmd-Shift 4, then press Space = Capture entire window

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Answer 3

fthnm2005 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 8, 2014 7:19 PM in response to Jim-Mac

Thanks! Ha-ha Awesome! Pressing 4 keys at the same time has been my new challenge. I think I figured out how to avoid the awkward left 3 finger pressing by using left 2 fingers and right two fingers.

Getting there...

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