Grab is an application created by Apple Computer

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

 for Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, used to take screenshot

Screenshot

A screenshot , screen capture , screen dump, screengrab , or print screen is an image taken by a computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device...

s. Grab is also present in OS X's progenitors NeXTSTEP

NEXTSTEP

NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...

 and OPENSTEP

OpenStep

OpenStep was an object-oriented application programming interface specification for an object-oriented operating system that used a non-NeXTSTEP operating system as its core, principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP was a specific implementation of the OpenStep API developed...

. It supports capturing a marquee selection, whole window, whole screen, and timed screen. Grab can be found in the Utilities folder under Applications, or by typing in /Applications/Utilities/Grab.app in Finder. The Grab utility can also be found in the Finder as a menu item by selecting "Services", then going to "Grab". The only image format for screenshots taken by Grab is TIFF

Tagged Image File Format

TIFF is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general. As of 2009, it is under the control of Adobe Systems...

. It can also be found using the Spotlight function (keyboard shortcut CMD SPACE)

This application is preinstalled on all recent macintosh systems.

Mac OS X specifics

As of Mac OS X v10.4

Mac OS X v10.4

Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...

, Preview

Preview (software)

Preview is Mac OS X's application for displaying images and Portable Document Format documents. Like Mac OS X itself, it comes from NeXT's OPENSTEP operating system....

 now has a Grab submenu in the File menu

File menu

The File menu is a computer menu common to most file-handling computer programs with a GUI . It often appears as the first item in the menu bar, and contains commands relating to the handling of files, such as open, save, print, etc...

, with selection, window and timed screen. In Mac OS X, it is also possible to save screenshots directly to the Desktop

Desktop metaphor

The desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users more easily interact with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the monitor of a computer as if it is the user's desktop, upon which objects such as documents and...

 in .pdf

Portable Document Format

Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....

 format (earlier versions of OS X) or PNG format (later versions), using keystrokes shown below. It is not possible to use this software while DVD Player is open.

Grab helps determine the size of an element on the screen. By using the selection feature and capturing the screen, one can go to "Edit" > "Inspector" from the menu or press Cmd+1; a dialog box will appear with the dimensions of the selected area.

Capture Options

• Selection - takes a picture of a part of the screen that you select.
• Window - takes a picture of a window you select.
• Screen - takes a picture of the entire screen.
• Timed - screen lets user start a timer and activate part of the screen (such as a menu), and then takes a picture of the screen.

Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Take a picture of the whole screen	Cmd-Shift-3 (Holding Ctrl saves the image into the clipboard instead of a file at the disk)
Take a picture of part of the screen	Cmd-Shift-4, then drag to select the area desired in the picture. (Holding Ctrl saves the image into the clipboard) Escape cancels the procedure.
Take a picture of a window, a menu, the menu bar, or the Dock.	Press Cmd-Shift-4, then press the Space bar. Move the pointer over the area desired so that it is highlighted, then click. To drag to select the area instead, press the Space bar again. "Escape" cancels the procedure.