Out of curiosity, when I have a window open where the content far exceeds the viewing area in the window (i.e. you must scroll up or down to see more content), is there a screen capture option that will capture the entire content, not just what is visible in the window?
Great question. Iāve also been in that situation & have wondered about it but never took the time to research it. Curious to see if thereās a way to do that.
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I donāt think this is something macOS out of the box offers globally. But individual apps can. The most common example I can think of is Safariās Export as PDF.
I thought my primary browser, Orion, had that but just now testing its various export options, including ātake screenshot of entire pageā were less than satisfying or actually complete page contents.
There was a similar discussion recently in another thread. There are a few screenshot utilities that can capture the full contents of a window, including content that you would need to scroll for.
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Itās not really a āscreen captureā at that point if you want content thatās not visible on the screen.
But that having been said, if your app will let you print the document/page, you should be able to print to a PDF file (or to the Preview app).
Of course, you may not get the same thing. For instance, when I tried printing a TidBits Talk page by typing CMD-P, it opened a popup window with a magic URL ( First impressions of macOS 26 Tahoe ) that has every post in the topic, formatted with a different (print-oriented) template and tries to print that. Completely different from a screen-shot.
(If I use Firefoxās menu-bar to print, what I get is an ugly mess, probably due to Discourseās infinite-scroll logic. I assume thatās why CMD-P generates a differently-formatted version of the content.)
This reminds me of a situation at one of my first jobs. We were selling a GUI library package. Among its features was a novel (at the time) āprint screenā feature where, instead of capturing and printing pixels from the screen, it told the app to re-draw its window using a drawing-context object associated with the printer. This would generate PostScript on Mac and Unix platforms (and would make platform-specific drawing-primitive calls on Windows and OS/2). The result was a beautiful rendering at the printerās full resolution, with razor-sharp text and vector graphics. Weād use these screen-shots in our advertising literature, which caused reviewers to accuse us of publishing mock-ups, since the (72 dpi) screens of the time didnāt look nearly as good.
iOS and iPadOS has this capability in Safari - if you request a screenshot it asks if you want just the screen or the full page. So, if itās specifically a Safari website, one way is to open the site in the mobile Safari app (AirDrop, Handoff, etc.) if you have one of these devices.
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You donāt need to detour through mobile Safari for this.
Mac Safari > File > Export as PDF will do it right away.
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Yes, Arc has it built in, and a number of screenshot utilities like CleanShot X can do it.
You can record screen instead in screenshot?
Great utility that does this, and more.
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You donāt make it clear, so I assume you refer to an open webpage.
A PDF export from Safari gives you a multi-page document.
However, if you want a document showing the entire contents as a single page, itās easier to use
Save Asā¦ > PNG
One advantage is that you can capture all the text at once without needing to page or scroll.
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Whole TidBITS Thread
The PDF and PNG methods generate only parts of a long Discourse thread.
ā¢ While you view the top of the page, they return only the first 7 posts.
ā¢ While you view the bottom of the page, they return only the last 7 posts.
To archive the entire thread, append this to the URL: /print
Your browser will display a full text version of the page, with links.
You can now Select All, or copy just selected posts.
(Initially, a print dialog covers this, but you can simply dismiss it.)
Example: https://talk.tidbits.com/t/screenshot-of-a-scrolling-windows-content/32751/print
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Yes. You can also type CMD-P and Discourse will automatically open a new window with this URL. From there, you can print to a PDF file.
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I donāt see that in my browsers, Dave. Are you referring to the Discourse app?
Nope. Iām running Firefox (version 147) on my Mac. I just type CMD-P when a discussion thread is visible (including this one). It created a popup window containing the ā¦/print URL.
Also works for me in Safari (version 26.2) and Chromium (version 140).
Maybe your browsers are configured to block the scripting needed to make this work.
Note also that this does not happen if I select File ā Print from the menu-bar. Only the CMD-P keyboard shortcut.
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Golly, cool tip! The key combo works in Orion Version 1.0.3 (142), WebKit 624.1.2.19.2, too!
I just tried putting /pdf at the end on a whim to see if it would go directly to pdf but not.
I have popup windows blocked. (Is that good, bad, or just indifferent?) When I type cmd-P, Firefox offers me the option to allow āpopups and third party redirectsā from this site. What are third party redirects? Apropos of nothing, since it a bundled option, why are third party redirects bundled with popups?
Note that these are curiosity questions, and not an issue because Firefox will also let me allow the popup on a one-time basis. But Iām a curious person, as those who know me will often attest.
Same here. But I have whitelisted certain sites where the popups are important and I believe not dangerous, including talk.tidbits.com.
Redirection is when a web server tells your browser to go look somewhere else for the content. When your browser sends an HTTP GET for a page, instead of receiving the page, it receives a status code in the 3xx range, telling your browser where it should go to find the actual content. Your browser (if it accepts the redirect) will automatically go to the provided URL.
See also Redirections in HTTP - HTTP | MDN
The term is also used when a page has scripts that cause the documentās main URL to change, causing it to change locations.
Redirections are used for a variety of reasons, including when servers are relocated to new service providers, web site reorganization, load balancing and all kinds of other reasons.
A third party redirect is when the redirect status doesnāt come from the main pageās content, but from embedded content, which comes from a different URL (possibly a different server).
For example, suppose youāve requested a URL from main.example.com, and the page has embedded content (maybe images or video) from cdn.example.com.
If you send the request and main.example.com redirects you (via any mechanism), thatās a first-party redirect. If you send the request, get the main page, and then cdn.example.com tries to redirect either its own content or the main pageās content, thatās a third-party redirect. Itās considered third-party even if the embedded content comes from the same server as the main page, as long as the redirect comes from that embedded content.
Third-party redirects, although really useful for many things, have been used by abusive advertising networks to hijack pages and replace them with scam/malware pages. Which is why itās a good idea to block them.
Hereās a page that attempts redirection (to a harmless page) in three ways and will let you know if theyāve been blocked or not. Third-Party redirection test.
As for why third-party redirects and popups are configurable as a group, I donāt know. I suspect this is because both have been used by abusive advertising networks, so theyāre seen as two sides of the same coin.
Hereās an article from the Chromium blog from 2017 that discusses the issue:
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