10 Mac tips (9 min.)
Just a few useful tricks for the Mac computer. (Recorded in OS X Snow Leopard. Everything still applicable in Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan.) Here is a written list: 1. While typing in some applications, press 'Esc' and it will pop up a list of suggested completions of the word you are typing. (Does not work in Mail, but does work in pages.) 2. Image capture with command-shift-3 to get the whole screen, command-shift-4 to make a selection with your mouse, and command-shift-4 then press the spacebar to get a little camera icon that lets you capture just a single window. 3. Command-tab lets you cycle through applications. If you keep holding the command key, you can pick the one you want with the mouse; or (holding down command), tab to go forward, ` to go backwards. 4. To select a block or section of text, click the start position (or select the starting text), then Shift-click the end position. 5. Option-arrow moves cursor by word. Shift-arrow or shift-option-arrow lets you select the text by character or by word. Command-shift bottom arrow selects all text below the cursor, up arrow all that above, right arrow all to the right, left arrow all to the left. 6. Option-click the minimize button minimizes all windows in the application. (also, option-clicking the minimized window restores all windows of that application) 7. Option-click on a running application in the Dock hides the front-most application and brings the clicked application to the front (unless it already was). 8. Command-Shift-click a link (in Safari or Firefox) opens it in a new tab and immediately displays the page. (Command-click opens in a new tab but does not display it immediately.) 9. If you have a block of text with irregular spacing (i.e. sent in Mail and it comes in blocks of text), or you have a string of words you want capitalized, you can use a couple tricks to help you out. First, there are Services you can enable in your System Preferences. Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Services. Scroll down to Text and enable 'Reformat' (and I like 'remove multiple spaces'). In TextEdit or Mail (sadly doesn't work in Pages), select your text, then Control-click, and you have a bunch of menus like Services and Transformations. Transformations let you capitalize, or make all upper- or lower- case. Services will have whatever services you've enabled that apply in that situation. I believe this is the text service I use: http://www.devontechnologies.com/download/products.html WordService, near the bottom of the page. 10. Another tip, you can use Automator to create Services and enable them in your System Preferences. i.e. I created a service to rename Inventory Report files with the current date and move them to my storage folder, so all I need to do with the report is ctrl-click and choose the service, it does the rest. If you want the Automator file (the app you created with Automator) to show up in the Services area, you will need to create an Automator file with the Services template. Edit and delete services by going to your Home, Library, Services folder. Source: My own experience. Resources: Not that there’s anything there yet but here’s my under-construction blog: https://tipmymac.wordpress.com
Just a few useful tricks for the Mac computer. (Recorded in OS X Snow Leopard. Everything still applicable in Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan.) Here is a written list: 1. While typing in some applications, press 'Esc' and it will pop up a list of suggested completions of the word you are typing. (Does not work in Mail, but does work in pages.) 2. Image capture with command-shift-3 to get the whole screen, command-shift-4 to make a selection with your mouse, and command-shift-4 then press the spacebar to get a little camera icon that lets you capture just a single window. 3. Command-tab lets you cycle through applications. If you keep holding the command key, you can pick the one you want with the mouse; or (holding down command), tab to go forward, ` to go backwards. 4. To select a block or section of text, click the start position (or select the starting text), then Shift-click the end position. 5. Option-arrow moves cursor by word. Shift-arrow or shift-option-arrow lets you select the text by character or by word. Command-shift bottom arrow selects all text below the cursor, up arrow all that above, right arrow all to the right, left arrow all to the left. 6. Option-click the minimize button minimizes all windows in the application. (also, option-clicking the minimized window restores all windows of that application) 7. Option-click on a running application in the Dock hides the front-most application and brings the clicked application to the front (unless it already was). 8. Command-Shift-click a link (in Safari or Firefox) opens it in a new tab and immediately displays the page. (Command-click opens in a new tab but does not display it immediately.) 9. If you have a block of text with irregular spacing (i.e. sent in Mail and it comes in blocks of text), or you have a string of words you want capitalized, you can use a couple tricks to help you out. First, there are Services you can enable in your System Preferences. Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Services. Scroll down to Text and enable 'Reformat' (and I like 'remove multiple spaces'). In TextEdit or Mail (sadly doesn't work in Pages), select your text, then Control-click, and you have a bunch of menus like Services and Transformations. Transformations let you capitalize, or make all upper- or lower- case. Services will have whatever services you've enabled that apply in that situation. I believe this is the text service I use: http://www.devontechnologies.com/download/products.html WordService, near the bottom of the page. 10. Another tip, you can use Automator to create Services and enable them in your System Preferences. i.e. I created a service to rename Inventory Report files with the current date and move them to my storage folder, so all I need to do with the report is ctrl-click and choose the service, it does the rest. If you want the Automator file (the app you created with Automator) to show up in the Services area, you will need to create an Automator file with the Services template. Edit and delete services by going to your Home, Library, Services folder. Source: My own experience. Resources: Not that there’s anything there yet but here’s my under-construction blog: https://tipmymac.wordpress.com