Tips from the Macsters
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Here are some handy tips and shortcuts from our Macinhome Apple and Mac consultants. Of note, we refer to the “Apple” key throughout this page. The Apple key is also called Command, and is the key immediately to the left and right of the Spacebar. We’re old fashioned - we liked that name better.
- To take a screenshot, press Apple-Shift-3 to capture the full screen area. To capture a smaller area you define, press Apple-Shift-4 then release all three keys and drag a box around what you want to capture. The image will appear on your Desktop as a PNG file.
- To select multiple items in a list, highlight the first item then Shift-click the last item. Apple-click to select or deselect individual items, and to add or remove items from your existing selection.
- To add an Application to the dock, go into the Applications folder and drag it down onto the Dock. To remove an item, drag it away from the Dock and drop it (so it goes poof). To add a document or folder to the Dock, drag it to the right of the divider near the Trash.
- To make sure you are connected to the right wireless network, look under the Airport menu in the top right of your screen to ensure there is a checkbox next to your network. If your network is not showing up on the list, you may want to power cycle your router.
- If you forgot a password that your computer had stored for you previously, go into Applications -> Utilities -> Keychain Access. From there, look down the list of items until you find the one you’re looking for, double click it, then click the Show Password checkbox. You will be asked for your computer’s Administrator password to see that saved password entry.
- If a program is unresponsive or the spinning beach ball of death isn’t going away, wait for a while (your Mac sometimes just needs a second to think). If it is still spinning after several minutes, you can Force Quit applications from Apple menu -> Force Quit... or by pressing Option-Apple-Escape. Use this with caution, as it can cause data loss and file corruption!
- To bring up the Contextual Menu (right click), hold Control and click. On a laptop that supports multi-touch you can enable the “Place two fingers on trackpad and click button for secondary click” option within System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Trackpad.
- To Zip compress a folder full of items, right click it and select “Compress [item]” from the Contextual Menu. If you highlight a group of items in the Finder, you can right click one of them to compress them all.
- To activate Quicklook in the Finder, highlight a picture, document, or video and press Spacebar. To get out of Quicklook press Spacebar again or click the little grey X in the top left corner of the Quicklook window.
- To switch between all your open applications, hold Apple then press Tab repeatedly without letting go of Apple. To quit one of those open applications, press Q when that icon is selected (without letting go of Apple).
- Some handy keyboard commands: Apple-Q to quit the front-most application, Apple-S to save and Apple-W to close the front-most window.
- To hide the front-most application, press Apple-H. To show all the hidden applications again, go to the Application menu (just right of the Apple menu) and select Show All.
- In any dialog box or error message, pressing Return will select the blue (default) button. Pressing Escape is the same as pressing the Cancel button.
- Having multiple items on your Desktop does not slow your Mac down - but Macinhome consultants may give you a hard time about it.
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