Change the screenshot file type

Dec 20, '01 04:31:15AM

Contributed by: finne

Apple's Cocoa Development mailing list archives contain an interesting snippet that explains how to change the default screenshot (command-shift-3 and -4) format from TIFF to JPEG, PICT or PNG. The original article can be seen here (read the dialog box for the username and password), but it's basically a one-line terminal command:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleScreenShotFormat imageFormat
Replace imageFormat with one of JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or PICT to change the format of the screenshot.

This can also easily be done using a prefpane known as OrangePref from Freshly Squeezed Software. The pane also allows you to set the scroll bar arrow behaviour (just like the TinkerTool prefpane).

[Editor's note: Of course, there are also third-party screenshot programs that offer even more choices - SnapzPro X, for example, can save images as .bmp, .gif, .psd, and probably a couple others I'm forgetting at the moment.]

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