Screenshot and Annotation Software

Starting to document a new application and wondering what people are using to grab screenshots and annotate them. I know I can do all of this in separate applications but I’m looking for something that’s convenient all-in-one package that let’s me grab a screenshot and within seconds start annotating it.

I’ve used Skitch in the past and it’s okay but their integration with EverNote seems to hamstrung the app (plus I really don’t want to use EverNote). I’ve tried Share Bucket and its interface on the Mac looks like it’s a (very poor) port from an iPad application (sorry, I like having menu’s on a desktop application. I looked through a variety of apps on the Mac App Store and quite a few are sold as SAAS and for something that I might use once or twice a year it’s not worth the money.

I while back I used Snapz Pro to grab screenshots because it has the ability to select the window and add a nice drop shadow. A few years ago I stopped updating it because it broke in every new version of the Mac OS. But I really liked that feature. Is there another utility that does the same thing?

So, looking for some ideas.

Clarify (http://clarify-it.com) sometimes gets recommended as an alternative for my solution - but I stand by the belief they have different behaviors and are for different situations. It can screenshot, annotate, and export to PDF.

cmd-shift-4 then press space and click on the window.

For annotating, I use PS.

What’s your solution?

Oh that was just me attempting to not plug Answers because it’s not the right solution for this situation.

SnagIt ? … haven’t needed it recently, but there was a time when I used it a lot

I’m like Sam, Cmd-Shift-4, although I use Affinity Designer for annotation.

Screen shots:
a. cmd-shift-3 create a screen-shot and put it in the Clipboard
b. cmd-3 create a screen-shot and save it in the Desktop folder (Screen Shot .png / Capture d’e?cran 2016-07-29 a? 09.14.25.png)

For cmd-4 / cmd-shift-4: same as cmd-3 / cmd-shift-3 +:
If you press the space bar and click: make a screen shot of the clicked window * and save it to disk (same location/name as cmd-shift-3)
If you select a screen area, you will get this area.

For notation:
Preview is your friend. In the image loaded window, click in one of the icons from the right (the suitcase), you reveal a tool bar: use what you need to make your notations.

NOTA: the screen shot feature(s) on WIndows is more or less the same (window / full screen) and there is another way that I forgot because it does not saved the HiDPI screen and I stopped using it.

There may even be a retarding ability (on both platforms ?) I forgot too.

For LINUX:

A more trained person advice is needed.

PS: most of the time, I use TextEdit (from Apple), Preview and the Finder to create user manuals with rich text and images (rtfd files --> print to pdf) on OS X.

  • I knew I forgot something !
    If the window you click in is not the frontmost window, you can get its contents provided you can click in it ! Isn’t it nice ?
    OS X.

Cmd-Shift-4 for windows. Fireworks for annotations. Sometimes Layers if I need only parts of the screenshot. ImageAlpha and ImageOptim for making the screenshots smaller.

I’m using Snapz Pro X for many years.
Still works fine for me in every OS X update in the past years.
Ambrosia Software still updates Snapz Pro X (Version 2.6.0 now).

You can also take a look at Ember by Real Mac Software.
The page seems to be unavailable for the moment, but you can still download a trial.
Here is a review of Ember, https://macsources.com/ember-mac

On Windows:
prntscr whole screen(s)
alt+prntscr the front window only

BTW: about screen.
There is a difference wetween OS X and Windows when there is two monitors: on Windows you get one file while on OS X you get two ( a ’ (1)’ suffix is appended in the second file).

SnapNDrag, though I still use an old version. Love it.

Voila – screenshots and iTunes like irganisation

Both on Mac

+1 for Clarify. Great for quick docs or tutorials.

I use Snagit.

I am using ShareX on Windows 10. it doesnt annotate. I grab it then paste it into paint.net and do the work there. I have not found an all-in-one in windows I like.

I’ve been trying out Clarity this morning. It’s cross platform and does most of what I want.

Can you give a link, there’s a bunch of OS X apps called Clarity.

ClariFy, not ClariTy

[quote=279542:@Sam Rowlands]cmd-shift-4 then press space and click on the window.

For annotating, I use PS.[/quote]

Same but with Pixelmator

Sorry, Clarify at http://www.clarify-it.com. I whipped out documentation in almost no time. I already had the screenshots from Snapz Pro (found my license code and updated) but the annotation and editing features were exactly what I was looking for.