WORKING MAC

Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Access menu commands across apps with these timesaving tips
BY SHARON ZARDETTO
C
omputers excel at performing
repetitive tasks. So why are you
opening the same menus and
submenus, looking for the same
commands, again and again? OS X lets
you assign keyboard shortcuts to menu
commands so you can trigger them
faster. And you can tailor application
shortcuts to your work habits. But a more
productive way to use this capability is to
set up shortcuts that work everywhere.
Setting up a systemwide keyboard
shortcut is a cinch: In the Keyboard system
preference, go to the Keyboard Shortcuts
tab. Click Application Shortcuts on the
left, and then click the plus-sign button
(+)under the list. In the sheet that
appears, select All Applications from the
Application menu and type the name of
the menu command in the Menu Title
field. Enter the desired shortcut in the
Keyboard Shortcut field and click Add
(see "Global Shortcuts").
A few tips: Type the command exactly
as it appears. Capitalization counts. If
there's an ellipsis ( ... ) after the command,
press Option-semicolon(;) to insert it.
Typing three periods usually doesn't work.
You don' t have to remember your
shortcuts- they appear in the menus the
same way standard shortcuts do.
Print Options at Your Fingertips
You can assign keyboard shortcuts to
printing options you use often, even when
they're buried in the Print dialog box. If. say,
you often save documents and webpages
as PDFs, set up a shortcut that triggers the
PDF ... Save As PDF command. (Remem-
ber to type the shortcut's name into the
Menu Title field exactly as it appears in the
menu: Save as PDF - and, again, to
get the ellipsis, type Option-semicolon.)
Once you've done this, you can activate
that feature with a keyboard shortcut (say,
:Jt-Option-P) after opening the Print dialog
box with the shortcut :Jt-P. Although
keyboard shortcuts don't work for buttons,
62 Macworld June 2012
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Global Shortcuts Create a global keyboard shortcut in the Keyboard preference pane by
clicking the plus-sign button (circled) and choosing All Applicati ons from the resulti ng sheet.
the PDF button is actually a menu. (For
more details on creating shortcuts for PDF
options, see "Leopard Keyboard Shortcut
Tricks" at macworld. com/7673.)
Assign shortcuts to whichever print
options you use the most. Using a
shortcut to switch between printers can
be especially convenient.
Zoom Windows
You needn' t click the green zoom button
in a window's top left comer to toggle
between a window's default size (usually as
large as possible) and the size and position
you've specified manually. Most applica-
tions have a Window menu with a Zoom
or Zoom Window command, but no key-
board shortcut. Assign the same shortcut
to both commands so you can use them
across many apps. I find that Controi-
Shift-Z is the combo least likely to conflict
with assigned zoom- or undo-related
commands in the applications I use.
Unminimize App Windows
Several Apple applications have either a
single window or a single main window
from which you can open other
windows (think iPhoto, Font Book,
iTunes, iCal, Address Book, and Mail) . If
you minimize this window before you
leave the program, no window will show
when you return to the program. You
can remember application-specific
keyboard commands to recover the
window or to select it from the Windows
menu. Or you can make a shortcut that
unminimizes the main window in any
of these apps.
This requires some work, because the
command in each program's Window
menu differs. In the Keyboard Short-
cuts pane, click Application Shortcuts,
and then choose the application' s name
from the Application menu. Type the
window's name in the Menu Title field
(in Mail, the name is Message Viewer;
in iTunes, it's i Tunes; in iCal, it's iCal;
and so on). Set the same key combo for
each one. I use Control-W.
Sharon Zardetto is the author of Take
Control of Spotlight for Finding Anything on
Your Mac (TidBits Publishing, 2011 ).
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