Screenshots Preference Pane 1.0

The Macintosh has always had the ability to take high-quality screenshots without the need of any additional third-party software. However, Apple has long controlled the format of the resulting picture, along with where it ends up on disk. This has meant that, when Apple decided to change any of these settings, there wasnt much that could be done about it. For example, when OS X came around, the format of a screenshot changed from PICT to PDF. More recently, with the arrival of Tiger, Apple changed the format from PDF to PNG.

Fortunately, Apple has finally given us a way, in the form of a .plist file, to change these settings. Unfortunately, taking advantage of this has meant a trip to the terminal every time you wanted to alter either setting.

Our Screenshots Preference Pane was written to make these Terminal sessions unnecessary. It allows you to change both the file format of your screenshots as well as where they end up on disk, with just a few clicks of the mouse. And, unlike other utilities, theres no need to log out or restart!

We also include instructions on how to add new graphic file formats (if any should become available in the future), along with an an example AppleScript that can be used to automatically open your screenshots as they are created.