Mac Tales

Here are 11 crucial shortcuts that experienced OS X-ers take for granted, that are not entirely obvious to the new convert from Windows.

It’s easy to get complacent with your shortcuts as a power user, and one of the very first questions the new users ask when starting to work with OS X is, where are the keyboard shortcuts?

Many quickly figure out that commands invoked with the CTRL key in windows, are often invoked using the APPLE key, in OS X.

For example:

1. Copy to clipboard, is APPLE – C
2. Cut to clipboard, is APPLE – X
3. Paste from clipboard, APPLE – V

Application control: We’re all familiar with the old CTRL-TAB, in Windows, well…

4. Switching between applications in OS X, similarly is, APPLE – TAB

But OS X has a lot to offer in terms of application control, let’s take a look at Expose:

Expose was introduced in Panther, and makes use of the function keys, f9 – f11. The best way to see how they work, is to give them a go:

5. f9, tiles all open windows
6. f10, tiles all windows of the current application
7. f11, clears all windows out of the way revealing the desktop.
8. Hitting the same key a second time, reverses the effect.

Additionally, there are a couple more application control shortcut keys that you really need to know:

9. APPLE – H, hides the current window (to get it back, click it’s dock icon, or use APPLE – TAB)

And finally, how do you force quit an application?
10. Well you can always CTRL-click it’s dock icon, and select force quit, or…
11. APPLE – ALT - ESC will bring up a force quit window, a little like task manager.

Hopefully these OS X tips will increase your productivity with your new mac / macbook.