How do I take screenshots of tall windows on a Mac?

October 9, 2006 1:22 PM

Is there a program for the Mac that will scroll a window to capture a screenshot of its entire contents?

Years ago before I switched I used SnagIt to take screenshots on my Windows machine. One of its most useful features was that you could select a window and it would vertically scroll it for you to capture it's entire contents as one tall image. I have been unable to find a Mac utility that does the same. Now when I need to take a screenshot of a tall window (like a long web page) I take multiple screenshots and stitch them together by hand.

posted by gilgamesh to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Well, for websites, just print it as a pdf in Safari -- make sure to have "Print Backgrounds" on and make the page setup a very long but wide enough piece of "paper." You can then convert the pdf to a png or whatever in Preview.

For other apps, I'm out of my league.
posted by neustile at 1:27 PM on October 9, 2006

Print Window
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12161
posted by elvissa at 1:27 PM on October 9, 2006

Here have been my various solutions:

1) use Print PDF function of the mac;

2) Use the Firefox extension Snapper;

3) Here is a list of screenshot 'ware
posted by jadepearl at 1:29 PM on October 9, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Also the Screen grab! extension for Firefox should get the work done.
posted by McSly at 1:29 PM on October 9, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Specifically made for webpages:

Paparazzi
posted by Steve3 at 1:29 PM on October 9, 2006

Command-Shift-4, then hit space. Click over the highlighted window you want. Works for anything.
posted by mkultra at 2:07 PM on October 9, 2006

Command-Shift-4, then hit space. Click over the highlighted window you want. Works for anything

And that snap went... where?
posted by dobbs at 2:21 PM on October 9, 2006

On your desktop. It's called Picture 1.png.
posted by bink at 2:32 PM on October 9, 2006

(It won't contain the whole scrollable page, though, unfortunately.)
posted by bink at 2:32 PM on October 9, 2006

Command-Shift-4 followed by space will only show the visible portion of the window. It won't scroll for you.
posted by tkolar at 2:33 PM on October 9, 2006

Yeah, that just grabs the visible area, which isn't what the OP was after.

On preview...
posted by dobbs at 2:34 PM on October 9, 2006

I've tried Paparazi in the past but have had problems because of the pages I needed screenshots of were not directly accessible with a URL (i.e. they needed POSTed form elements or relied on some sort of session data). But, it looks like the Screen grab! Firefox extension does exactly what I need; I honestly never even thought to look for a browser extension...
posted by gilgamesh at 3:09 PM on October 9, 2006

McSly's suggestion to use the Firefox extension Screen grab is excellent - you can "save document as image" (or viewport or window) to a graphic, it will capture the entire page no matter how long/tall/wide.

I often use it, then converting the graphic to a pdf in order to add notes (just because I'm more familiar with Acrobat note taking than Fireworks or PhotoShop).
posted by ceri richard at 11:59 PM on October 9, 2006