Entries Tagged 'Mac' ↓

A cool little tidbit that I use and forget about is being able to print a webpage to a PDF. You just go to file, click print, and in the bottom left corner of the printer dialog box there is a drop down arrow box that gives you some options and one of them is PDF. Instead of printing out the page (and it doesn’t have to be a webpage) you end up with a nice neat little PDF file. Mac Happiness!

1. Create a “Burn Folder”
2. Click the finder icon (the little blue faces) in the dock
3. Click file/new burn folder (menu bar at the top of your screen)
4. Go to the folder where the files you want to burn are living
5. Click a file you want to burn to disc.  (Hold down the apple key and click multiple files to select more than one)
6. Select edit/copy and then click on the burn folder and click edit paste
or drag the files over to the burn folder
7. The files you selected should appear in the folder as “alias icons” with little arrows in the bottom left corner of each file (indicates it’s a shortcut)
8. Select file/Burn “burn folder” to disc or click the burn button that appears in the upper right corner of the finder window
9. There will be a dialog box asking you to insert a blank disk
10. Insert a blank disk into the Mac and it will start burning your files.

While there are jobs that need a full fledged word processor, there are multiple times during the day when I just need a place to put some text. I don’t want columns or hanging indents or layer upon layer of formatting. I just want to type some words! One of the applications that you will find hiding in your application folder is called TextEdit. Open it and then right-click on the icon in the dock and choose keep in dock. Aside from the fact that it is just a nifty little word processor there is another little trick you can do with it.
This is one of those tiny little Mac things that is not hugely important but it just makes you smile. If you frequently run across snippets of text on the web that you want to save or email someone the Mac has a few ways to make this easy. Just select the text. If you are using Mail.app, you can drag the text onto the icon in the dock and it will open up a message with the text in it - all you have to do is add the addressee and click send.

If you have the TextEdit icon in the dock, you can drag the selected text onto the icon and TextEdit will open with the text already inserted. Now if it a large amount of text and you want a summary there is one more trick. Highlight the text in TextEdit and click on TextEdit in the upper left corner of your screen. Click on services and you will see a list of things that you can do. this list changes depending on what application you are in and what software is installed on your Mac. Right now we are going to choose Summarize. You can choose summarize by sentence or paragraph and you can adjust the size. When you click to close you will have the option to save or discard. Go on - give it a try. These are some of my favorite tips!

If you are new to the Mac you will see that a lot of your programs have icons in the “dock” - that area at the bottom of your screen with all the cool pictures! You can click on those icons to launch programs

You can launch programs from the dock but not everything is there. You can also click on the icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen called “Macintosh HD”.

You will now see several folders listed and you will click on the Applications folder to open it - there are your programs!
Another way to find your programs is to use the finder
The finder also brings up several folders and you can click on the applications folder from here. The Finder could be compared to Windows Explorer.

If you find a program you want to install it is usually as easy as downloading the file and then double

clicking. Let’s use Firefox for an example -

When you install software on a PC you usually use a setup file that has the extension .exe - on a mac you usually download a dmg file.

You click on the dmg file and you may have a file that looks similar to the image on the right - it’s called a disk image. After you drag the app file to your applications folder you will ctrl click on this disk image and “eject” it.

In the case of Firefox you will download the dmg file and on the same page you will have great instructions for what to do next. The screenshots below are what you will find on the Firefox page.

Basically you click on the dmg file. You then drag firefox.app file into the applications folder and you are done. When you double click it the Firefox icon it will open and the icon will show in the dock. If you use it all the time you can right-click or command-click and choose leave in dock. It will now stay in the dock even when you close it.

You can also right-click icons in the dock and choose remove from dock. This does not remove the actual application - it is still in the applications folder. You just don’t have the icon sitting in the dock anymore. You can do this with programs you rarely use to clean things us a bit.

Soooo - the Macintosh HD icon is what you click to find the main folders, including the Applications folder where your programs live. If you want to install software you will download a dmg file (sometimes it may be a zip file) that you click to open. Drag the app file to the Applications folder and you have installed your first program on your Mac!

Do you want the whole screen?
Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop

Do you want just the window you are working in?
Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop

Do you want to select a particular part of the screen?
Command-shift-4  (your cursor will become a cross you can drag across and down to select the area to make a screenshot)

Now if you want to take the screenshot and just save it to the clipboard you will do the same thing only add ctrl.  For example: Command-Control-Shift-3
The same with the others - just hold down ctrl too.  Why would you want to do this?  Instead of having this picture sitting on your desktop you might want to open your email and paste it there and send it to me to show me a problem you are having.  You might want to paste the picture into a document or a presentation to show a step in a process you are teaching.

If you just got your Mac, you’re operating system version is Leopard and you can also do the following:
Hold down space to lock the size of a selection and move it when the mouse moves.
Hold down shift to resize only one edge of the section
Hold down option to resize selection without the center moving.
(Because I am using Tiger I haven’t had the opportunity to try those last keystrokes out but I have used the other commands often - if I have made an error please let me know)

How do I get to the internet using my Mac?The Mac comes with it’s own internet browser called Safari. Look for the icon that looks like a compass. Things will look very similar to any other time you have gone to the internet. Whether you have used Internet Explorer or Firefox you will see the webpage, a box that contains the URL or web address, and buttons for maneuvering around. Here is a screenshot that is typical of what you will see:

On the left you see the three little round buttons that let you close/minimize, or maximize. Just below them you will see arrows for going backwards or forwards. A button to refresh the page (looks like a circular arrow) and a plus sign which lets you add the current website to your bookmarks (favorites)

Down on the right bottom corner there is a little triangle with lines across it. You will notice that when you click the maximize button in Safari it doesn’t fill the entire screen. You can drag that triangle to make the window even larger.

If you are like me and even the bi-focals are not quite enough anymore there are a couple of key shortcuts that you will love. Command (apple) key and the plus sign makes the text on a webpage bigger. You can press the key combination several times to get things large enough to read. To go back to the normal size just press command (apple) key and the minus or dash sign. If you don’t like keyboard shortcuts you can do the same thing by going to view on the toolbar and clicking make text bigger or smaller.
There is another way to make things easier to see. First practice scrolling by using two fingers on your trackpad. You can drag two fingers towards you or away from you on the trackpad to scroll. If you do this (or use your mouse scroll wheel) while holding down ctrl you will be able to zoom in to particular areas of the screen. Just move the wheel or scroll with two fingers, away from you.
To go back to normal just scroll towards you.

This zooming technique works on everything - not just Safari.

As in everything on the Mac - you can always click help on the toolbar and find answers to your questions there.

There is a box to the right of the URL where you can type words to search for.

If you decide Safari is not your cup of tea you can install Firefox for the Mac. Next time I will talk about how to install an application so you can do just that!

I will be posting on using the Mac for the next few weeks and if you have a question I will be glad to try to find answers for you.

1. How do I copy and paste?

Apple or Command key (cmd)
this key does a lot of what the control key did on the pc and more
to copy and paste you can use this key with c for copy and v for paste

2. How do I right-click?

The ctrl click is the same as right-click on the pc

3. How do I log off or shut down?

Look in the upper left corner of your screen.  Click on the picture of an apple.  This menu lets you log off or shut down among other things.

4. What if a program freezes?

you would ctrl-alt-del
On the Mac press Cmd-Alt-Escape

5. How do I close an application or minimize it?

A lot of what was on the right on a pc is on the left on a mac.  You will see three buttons on the left top of the application window.  From left to right - close, minimize, maximize
You can also you the keys cmd and M to minimize

6. How do I backspace?

pc backspace = mac delete
If you wish to delete left to right like the windows delete key you have to press fn and delete

7. How do I know a program has been shut down?

In Windows, if you are working on a Word document and you close it, then Word is closed too.  On the Mac you may close a document, but if you look at the icon in the dock (that’s that strip of programs at the bottom of your screen) you will see a little black triangle under the open programs.  If you were working on a document in Pages and closed to document, you will still need to ctrl click on the icon and close the application.

8. Where are all my applications?

If you click on that icon that looks like a hard drive on your desktop, you will see a folder called applications.  That is where all your programs are.

More to come later!

Can you say “iCandy”?