Macintosh Lesson #1—Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard Shortcuts might sound rudimentary to some, but I feel this one tip will do more to speed up your computer use than any other tip.
What are keyboard shortcuts? A keyboard shortcut allows you to type a command instead of using the mouse and a menu. Why does this increase your computing productivity? Take one scenario, you need to save a text document. Where are your hands? On the keyboard. Without keyboard shortcuts, you must move a hand from the keyboard, find the mouse, move the cursor up to the File menu, click, drag to Save, release. Now, find the keyboard home keys and continue typing. With keyboard shortcuts, you press and hold the command key with right hand, press “S” key with the normal finger and return right hand to home keys. If you save your files regularly–I assume you do–this single keyboard shortcut will save many minutes per day.
How do you learn the shortcuts? First take a look at two common menus.
Notice the strange characters on the right edge of the menus. These are the keyboard shortcuts. For Macintosh users, they are also known as “Command Key Equivalents”. This is because most keyboard shortcuts require you to press and hold the command key (the first key to either side of the space bar with the strange symbol–⌘) then press the specific letter key.
At first glance learning these shortcuts looks daunting. When you look closer you will notice some sanity. Since the first Macintosh Apple has been very forceful with developers so that they make most common keyboard shortcuts the same. This makes it much easier to use the keyboard shortcuts. In many cases they also used the letter you would most expect. “N” for new, “O” for open. When they couldn’t use the initial letter, because it was in use somewhere else, they gave us a way to remember it. “W” for window, close. So, which keyboard shortcuts are the easiest to learn first. Let me list some that are the most common, and easiest to remember. When the choice of letter is not apparent, I list give the method I used to learn it.
File Menu
New ⌘N
Open ⌘O
Close ⌘W (stands for window, close)
Save ⌘S
Print ⌘P
Edit Menu
Undo ⌘Z (just because it is next to Cut and Copy)
Cut ⌘X (looks like a pair of scissors)
Copy ⌘C
Paste ⌘V (just because it is next to Cut and Copy)
Select All ⌘A
Font or Format Menu
Bold ⌘B
Italic ⌘I
Underline ⌘U
There is one other thing to know concerning keyboard shortcuts, and that is the other odd symbols in the menus. In these cases you need to press both modifier keys, and the the appropriate letter.
Shift ⇧
Option ⌥
Control ^
These are generally used when the software developers ran out of letters, or when the command is similar to another command. For instance Save (⌘S) and Save As… (⇧⌘S) or Print (⌘P) and Printer Setup (⇧⌘P).
As a last reason to use keyboard shortcuts, while writing this article, I have saved at least 10 times. I never used the menus, only keyboard shortcuts. If I had to use the menus, I might never have taken the time to save. This can be disastrous if the program I was using crashed and I had to start over.
