Annotate Screenshots in Mountain Lion is Super Easy

I often have to create documentation with screenshots of web pages or applications. In order to make it easier for a reader to focus on what is important I want to annotate the image with ovals, rectangles or text. So far this was not very easy but by pure luck I figured out a quit fast and easy solution which does not to require to create temporary files.

These are the steps:

1. Create a screenshot to the clipboard (Shift-Control-Command-4) and optionally you can then hit the spacebar to select a window
2. Go to Preview (open it if not yet done)
3. Create new document (Command-N) => the image from the clipboard is placed automatically into the window
4. Annotate (like Control-Command-R) the image
5. If needed select all (Command-A)
6. Copy the image (Command-C)
7. Go to the target App (Nisus Writer, Pages etc)
8. Paste the image (Command-V)

The only annoying step is that I have to “delete” the image in Preview afterwards but that can be done at the end.

I can also copy an image from the target document or from another source like Safari etc.

Happy documenting – Andy

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