Key Combinations: Save Time with OS X

Although OS X is simple to use, there are tons of advanced key commands that most users don’t know or use. Here is a short list of a number the most important key combinations you’ll ever learn if you find yourself typing, blogging or coding a lot on a Mac. I really wish I had known these in high school because I find they’ve sped up my typing a lot more than Mavis Beacon did in computer class. If you make using these key combos a habit I promise you’ll never look back!

This first group of commands is absolutely essential to working quickly with the keyboard. Just forget the mouse is there and navigate your words or code quickly with only those 109 keys before you. Seriously, if you learn to work using the keyboard almost exclusively I think it can speed you up almost as much as learning to touch-type.

Option ( ⌥) – The single word modifier. Holding either the Option key and tapping the left or right arrow will allow you to skip the cursor to the other side of the next word in that direction.

Command ( ⌘) – The line modifier. Much the same as Option, holding the Command key and tapping the left or right arrow will move the cursor to the end or the beginning the current line. Doing the same with the up and down arrows will wove the cursor to the top of bottom of the document.

With these two modifiers in mind there are a number of possible combinations such as the ones below:

Select an entire line left or right – Shift-Command-Left or Right Arrow

Select an entire word left or right – Shift-Option-Left or Right Arrow

Move cursor to end of next word – Option-Left or Right Arrow

Move cursor to end of line – Command-Left or Right Arrow

Erase an entire line before cursor – Command-Delete (Backspace / ⌫)

Erase an entire line after cursor – Command-Delete (⌦)

Erase an entire word before cursor – Option Delete (BackSpace /⌫)

Erase an entire line after cursor – Option-Delete (⌦)

The Character Palette can be super handy if you need to throw down a few weird Unicode characters but don’t know the key combination. For example if you can’t remember the keys for the Apple logo (Shift-Option-K) you can search for it in the Character Palette.

Show Character Palette – Option-Command-T

I think most people know next two of these, but the third is much less known yet very useful. The “Take a Screenshot of a Single Window” key combo will change the mouse cursor into a camera icon which you click on whichever window you would like to screenshot. Best of all, the PNG file of the screenshot even places the window over a transparent background making it especially easy to integrate into a blog post or website. Remember, it only screenshots one window element at a time, so if a given window has a slide-out panel you must capture the slide out and the main window separately and manually edit them together afterwards.

Take a Full-Screenshot – Shift-Command-3

Take a Selection-Screenshot – Shift-Command-4

Take a Screenshot of a Single Window – Shift-Command-4 and then Space. Click on the window to capture.

Here are a few “bonus” key combos not many people are aware of.

Look up word in Dictionary or Thesaurus – Control-Command-D

Continue Dictionary looking up any word under the mouse pointer – Continue holding Control-Command after pressing Control-Command-D

Slow-Mo Quartz Effect – Hold Shift while activating a Quartz effect like showing the Dashboard or minimizing a window

Remember, most of these are listed and and can be edited in the System Keyboard & Mouse / Keyboard shortcut pane. I’d recommend looking through and learning these commands, as it will give you more control over your Mac using your keyboard, as well as help you work more quickly.

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