Keyboards
As you know by now, switching to the Mac entails switching your brain, especially when it comes to the old keyboard shortcuts. All of those Ctrl-key sequences become, on the Mac, ⌘-key sequences. (Check your Macintosh keyboard: The ⌘ key is right next to the space bar, usually on both sides.)
But plenty of other Mac keys may seem unfamiliar. For your reassurance pleasure, Chapter 1 offers a rundown of what they do.
Text-Navigation Keystrokes
In Windows, you may have grown accustomed to certain common keystrokes for navigating text—key combinations that make the insertion point jump to the beginning or end of a word, line, or document, for example.
OS X programs offer similar navigation keystrokes, as you can see here:
Function | Windows keys | Mac keys |
|---|---|---|
Move to previous/next word | Ctrl+←, Ctrl+→ | Option-←, Option-→ |
Move to beginning/end of line | Home/End | Home/End[a] |
Move to previous/next paragraph | Ctrl+↑, Ctrl+↓[b] | Option-↑, Option-↓[c] |
Move to top/bottom of window | Home/End | Home/End (but see below) |
Select all text | Ctrl+A | ⌘-A |
Select text, one letter at a time | Shift+↑, Shift+↓ | Shift-↑, Shift-↓ |
Select text, one word at a time | Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys | Option-Shift-arrow keys |
Undo | Ctrl+Z | ⌘-Z |
Cut, Copy, Paste | Ctrl+X, C, V | ⌘-X, C, V |
Close window | Alt+F4 | ⌘-W |
Switch open programs | Alt+Tab | ⌘-Tab |
Hide all windows |
| F11 |
[a] in some programs [b] in some programs [c] in some programs | ||
Incidentally, the keystroke for jumping to the top or bottom ...
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