How do we make screenshots save as .jpg instead of PDF?

[Aquatic]

I recall reading about this somewhere but I can't find the answer, at osxhints or osxfaq or elsewhere. I found Kunvert which is nice but it would be better if I could just save as jpg. Thanks.

[kcmac]

Doesn't really change your situation but I use IMage instead of Kunvert.

http://www.kokorozashi.org/products/iMage/

[The Milkman]

It used to be that you just had to open terminal and type:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleScreenShotFormat JPEG

But I do believe that 10.2 killed this.

There is a pretty good tip that might work in this (http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=2635) thread on OSXFAQ from user chipgaylor but to save you the time here is the post:

I have the same frustration (arrived with Jaguar, no?). I am hoping to be able to specify TIFF or JPG once again but have not found a way. My workaround is presently a Quickeys keystroke shortcut to start the Grab utility. The Grab utility's command-shift-A keystroke works in a very similar way to the the finder's command-shift-4 and directly produces a TIFF. The whole thing, therefore, requires one extra keystroke to start the Grab utility, remembering how I set it up and, of course, knowing it would be a heck of a lot better to be able to specify the finder's screen capture file type output in the first place. Why do you suppose it was changed to PDF (it doesn't work to help me either)?

[PB]

Originally posted by Aquatic
I found Kunvert which is nice but it would be better if I could just save as jpg. Thanks.

What is wrong with using the export function of preview?

[costique]

Originally posted by PB
What is wrong with using the export function of preview? Nothing. I just don't want extra steps to have a natural TIFF instead of inappropriate PDF. This sucks.

[Chucker]

And what's wrong with PDF?

[The Milkman]

Originally posted by Chucker
And what's wrong with PDF?

I don't think that they are saying there is anything wrong with PDF it is just that they would prefer to have the screenshots save automatically as jpeg's (which you used to be able to do before 10.2).

Yes, you can export from Preview, but the point is, you should not have to.

[rok]

Originally posted by Chucker
And what's wrong with PDF?

well, for one, apple doesn't give any ability to change the file size or compression of the resulting PDF. they tend to turn out unnecessarily large.

[Chucker]

Smaller than JPEG and JPEG2000 though, and way smaller than TIFF which someone suggested here. Only smaller format I could find was PNG.

[Spart]

Eh? With PDF, my 1024x768 screen shot is 460K, with JPG my screen shot is 352K.

[rok]

Originally posted by rok
well, for one, apple doesn't give any ability to change the file size or compression of the resulting PDF. they tend to turn out unnecessarily large.

oops, i was quoting PDFs from the print dialog box (with hi-res files to begin with). the screenshot ones aren't too bad.

[Eugene]

If you have any image manipulation app which allows you to save as .JPG, you can just take the screenshot while also holding down the control key to save it to the pasteboard.

[keyboardf12]

buy snapz.

its the bestest screen capture program for osx.

[Brad]

Originally posted by keyboardf12
snapz Amen. I was just about to chime in with that and was disappinted to see you beat me to the punch. :p

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/images/spx_sm_palette.jpg

I find myself using it constantly.

[pscates]

Count me as the third proud supporter/user of SnapzProX. The best, hands down. I use it ALL THE TIME and I'd recommend it to anyone finding themselves taking more than five screenshots a day.

:)

If you're a writer, trainer, creating tutorials, etc., it's really a "must have".

[Brad]

edited.

[Aquatic]

The Milkman you are in Lebanon! I am in Hartford! PM me or AIM me at AquaIX or something that is awesome.

PDF sucks. It is not an image format. Can Word open PDF? Can Safari natively without a plugin? And it's annoying to always make Preview export or even use Kunvert. I don't do enough screenshots to buy Snapz but I do recognize that it's the man when it comes to screenshots. Thanks anway... I guess we can't make it save to jpg. I hope they change that in Panther.

PDF should be just that, P should stand for Portable, not Proprietary. If Adobe wants people to use it they should open the standard up, so Safari can natively open PDF, search for text, select it, then copy.

[Mount_my_floppy]

I always take a screen shot then right click on it and select my handy convert to jpeg function :D

http://fuzzybawls.servebeer.com/onmycommand.jpg

This is done with the software "On My Command". I love it.

[moki]

Originally posted by kcmac
Doesn't really change your situation but I use IMage instead of Kunvert.

http://www.kokorozashi.org/products/iMage/

Or you can use Snapz Pro X to save directly to .jpg, or any other format you like. It has many other features as well... http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/utilities/snapzprox/

[costique]

Originally posted by moki
Or you can use Snapz Pro X to save directly to .jpg, or any other format you like. It has many other features as well... http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/utilities/snapzprox/ Well, moki, we all like Ambrosia SW and I, personally, have a deep respect for Snapz. The things is: taking a screenshot in a raster image format is the most obvious thing. Mac OS could do it since System 7 (or 6? It's been for so long that I can't even remember). Mac OS 10.0 through 10.1.x could do it as well. WTF?! Cocoa has NSImage which can do the thing automagically. Why PDF? It's the most strange choice (they just could not afford CMYK EPS, you know) to store a set of pixels representing a screen image. In fact, somebody at Apple must have gone crazy or unexpectedly got fired and taken revenge on all OS X users. I don't mind PDF when I print documents. I don't mind EPS at my pre-press work. I just can't think of any justification of the format chosen to save screen shots.

[123]

Originally posted by costique
Well, moki, we all like Ambrosia SW and I, personally, have a deep respect for Snapz. The things is: taking a screenshot in a raster image format is the most obvious thing. Mac OS could do it since System 7 (or 6? It's been for so long that I can't even remember). Mac OS 10.0 through 10.1.x could do it as well. WTF?! Cocoa has NSImage which can do the thing automagically. Why PDF? It's the most strange choice (they just could not afford CMYK EPS, you know) to store a set of pixels representing a screen image. In fact, somebody at Apple must have gone crazy or unexpectedly got fired and taken revenge on all OS X users. I don't mind PDF when I print documents. I don't mind EPS at my pre-press work. I just can't think of any justification of the format chosen to save screen shots.

Well, they did it to stop people using jpeg (not suitable for screenshots at all) which I think is good. However, they should have gone with png instead of pdf.

[SYN]

I use DropJPEG (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8109) for converting my .pdf screenshots to jpeg. Very handy, it's just one drag and drop away.

[pyr3]

Originally posted by 123
Well, they did it to stop people using jpeg (not suitable for screenshots at all) which I think is good. However, they should have gone with png instead of pdf.

They should just make it a preference in SystemPrefs to decide to make screenshots 'JPEG / PNG / PDF'.

[123]

Originally posted by pyr3
They should just make it a preference in SystemPrefs to decide to make screenshots 'JPEG / PNG / PDF'.

I can't think of anything useful you can do with jpeg except maybe movie screenshots. And then you can always convert them from a lossless format.

So, no! Apple shouldn't include jpeg as an option. People don't know what the different formats should be used for, they would choose jpeg just because their digi cam does it.

[kcmac]

Just found this. Haven't tried it but it is freeware.

http://www.pixture.com/macosx.php

SnapClip.

[Spart]

Originally posted by 123
Well, they did it to stop people using jpeg (not suitable for screenshots at all) which I think is good. However, they should have gone with png instead of pdf.

Why is it not suitable for screenshots? Mind backing that up? Almost every screen shot I take ends up on the web...JPEG compresses much better, at the maximum possible quality it is slightly bigger than PNG, but if I use a more realistic maximum, (80 quality in PS) then the JPEG is much smaller.

[richyfp]

Ya see, I thought that Folder actions could do this pretty easily. I spent about 5 minutes knocking up this script (mainly by cobbling together and modifying bits and pieces from Apple's example code). For those of you who know what Folder actions are and how to use them, make sure that you have the GUI scripting beta installed...
on process_item(this_item)
try
tell application "Preview"
activate
open this_item
end tell
delay 2
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Preview"
click menu item "Export..." of menu "File" of menu bar 1
delay 1
tell sheet 1 of window 1
tell pop up button 1
click
delay 1
tell menu 1
set the menu_options to the name of every menu item
if the menu_options contains "JPEG" then
click menu item "JPEG"
delay 1
else
error "Cannot convert this image to JPEG format."
end if
end tell
end tell
end tell
keystroke return
tell window 1
tell sheet 1
tell group 2
tell group 1
tell text field 1
set the new_imagename to the value
set the value to the destination_path & new_imagename
delay 1
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
keystroke return
delay 2
keystroke "w" with command down
end tell
end tell
on error the error_message number the error_number
display dialog the error_message buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1
end try
end process_item

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_item
try
tell application "Finder"
set the folder_name to the name of this_folder
if (added_items as string) contains text "Picture" then
process_item(added_item as alias)
end if
end tell
end try
end adding folder items to