Keyboard shortcuts
DEFINE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
You likely know keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy, paste, and other tasks. But explore application menus to see if others exist to trigger actions you commonly use. If one’s missing, add it in the Keyboard System Preferences pane. In the Shortcuts tab, click +, choose an application, type the exact name of the menu command, and define a shortcut. Be mindful to not use a combination that’s in use in the app or system–wide, or you will override the original shortcut.
USE COMMAND+?
When working on text-oriented documents, keeping your hands on the keyboard is more efficient than using the mouse pointer to navigate menus. But what should you do when you forget a keyboard shortcut, or a command doesn’t have one? Bring up the Help menu with Command+Shift+/ (which, if you think about it, is Command+?) and start typing. Menu items will appear, filtering to match your search term. Use the arrow keys to navigate the results and you’ll be shown the selected item’s original menu position. Press the Return key to confirm the command or Escape twice to back out of the search.
INSTALL CHEATSHEET
On iPad, hold down the Command key and you’ll see all of the current app’s keyboard shortcuts. Big Sur doesn’t have something similar built–in, but CheatSheet (free, mediaatelier.com/ CheatSheet) plugs that gap. After installing the app, you’ll need to give it access to Accessibility and Input Monitoring; this is done in the Privacy tab of the System Preferences Security & Privacy pane. Quit and restart CheatSheet and you then hold Command to view the current app’s shortcuts. Use the app’s preferences (via the cog icon) to adjust the delay or print the current app’s shortcuts sheet.
NAVIGATE TEXT
As inefficient as it is to use the mouse to navigate menus when working on text–based documents, it’s even worse to use it to adjust the cursor’s placement. So learn and embrace the Mac’s keyboard text navigation shortcuts. Jump between words with Option+left/right arrow or to the start/ end of lines with Command+left/right arrow. Option and up/down jumps between paragraphs, and Command–up/down sends you to the start/end of a document. Add Shift to those shortcuts and they become a quick way to select words, lines and paragraphs.
ACCESS EXTENDED CHARACTERS
Extended characters are readily available in macOS — you just need to know the combination of keys to press. For example, if writing about temperature, the degrees symbol (°) is Shift+Option+8. Need an ellipsis (…)? Option+; will get you one. To learn how this all works, open Keyboard in System Preferences and turn on the Input menu in the Input Sources tab. Click the Input menu in the menu bar and select Show Keyboard Viewer. You can then see, live, combinations required for different symbols.
An alternate option exists for characters closely related to letters — hold a letter key down and type a number to choose from the pop–up that appears. So to write é, you could press Option+E and then E, or hold E for a moment and then type 2.