3 Mac keyboard shortcuts for newbies

Here’s 3 keyboard shortcuts (for a Mac) that I get asked about consistently. Learn to love the command key! Hit these combination of keys to make your life easier.

  • Hit Command +, or Command – to increase or decrease font size.
  • Hold Shift, command, 4 to bring up the cross-hairs for you to highlight (click and drag) an area to take a screenshot. It automatically saves to your desktop.
  • Hit Command, spacebar to bring up the Spotlight feature to search for an app, document or whatever

I know you experts out there have these all dialed in, but what other shortcuts do you get asked about on a weekly basis? (I just used command-i to italicize)

 

 

Other LTI posts kinda like this one:

  1. Most helpful Mac applications for me.
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  3. Reeder for Mac – My new favorite blog reader

4 Responses to “3 Mac keyboard shortcuts for newbies”

  1. Karl Kranich January 20, 2012 at 7:59 am #

    I usually add control to shift, command, 4 to get the screenshot to go to my clipboard instead of the desktop.

    In Firefox, I often use command-T to get a new tab and command-W to close the current tab.

    • Matt McComas January 24, 2012 at 9:12 pm #

      nice tip with the clipboard instead of desktop. thanks Karl

  2. Tim Casteel January 22, 2012 at 6:09 pm #

    Love the Command-spacebar! Best shortcut out there!

    And I agree w Karl – Command-W is one of my most frequent keystrokes.

    As well as Command-Tab and Command-`(the button above the tab button) to tab between Apps and windows within an app (respectively). Command-Tab is especially helpful to hold down and see what apps are currently open (and if you hold the Command button down and push tab a couple times it cycles through the apps.

    For surfing the world wide web these two are super helpful:
    - use Command-L to highlight the URL bar (where you type in websites)
    - use Option-Command-F to highlight the Google bar

    • Matt McComas January 24, 2012 at 9:11 pm #

      Tim, I actually saw you using command-Tab last summer and started trying it more. I like it.

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