The Mac s Keyboard

The Mac's Keyboard

Understanding how the Mac keyboard is laid out, and what its special keys do, is a crucial part of understanding how the Mac works. If you're new to the Mac, the special keys at the bottom of the keyboard might seem weird or esoteric; however, there is a method to their apparent madness.

Modifier Keys

First of all, the Mac has three special modifier keys, found at the bottom of the keyboard. These keys are Control (sometimes spelled Ctrl ), Option , and Command (also known as the Apple key and represented as ). These keys, like the Ctrl and Alt keys on Windows keyboards, are used in combination with other keys on the keyboard to accomplish certain common functions in the operating system as well as in most applications. However, unlike the modifier keys in Windows , the Mac's modifier keys each have their own specific meanings, which are usually carefully observed by application developers. The keys are also each expressed by their own special symbols, as shown in the following chart.

Key	Symbol	Purpose
Command		In combination with alphanumeric keys, " (also often called "propeller," "Apple," or " splat ") creates shortcuts to actions that are available from the menus in an application.
Option		The "magic" key. The Option key combines with letter keys to allow you to enter special accented or alternate letters or symbols. When combined with mouse actions or graphical buttons , Option changes the meanings of common functions to a less-used "alternate" version.
Control		This key simulates the second (right) mouse button of a two-button mouse. Normally, if you click and hold the mouse on an item for a second or two, you will get a contextual menu with shortcuts and other options; however, if you hold down Control while clicking, the contextual menu pops up immediately. If you're used to right-clicking things in Windows, Control +clicking does much the same thing. Also, Control is used for compatibility with Unix applications designed with the PC Ctrl key in mind.
Shift		Shift is usually used for capitalizing letters or creating common special characters ; however, it is also often used similarly to Option : to trigger an "alternate" version of some function.

Key Combinations

The Mac has function keys F1 through F16 along the top of the keyboard; however, unlike the function keys in Windows, the Mac function keys are hardly ever used for any strictly predefined purpose. In Windows, for example, you can press Alt+F4 to close a window; this does not work on the Mac. Functions such as closing windows have different, carefully chosen key combinations, based on regular alphanumeric keys and designed to be easily remembered and consistent across nearly all applications. Most of these key combinations involve the Command key, although the Option or Shift key can be combined with other keys to create a secondary, related command.

NOTE

On laptop Macs, you have to hold down the Fn ( Function ) key to use the F1 through F12 keys, as these keys are primarily mapped to functions such as brightness and sound control. You can reverse this configuration in the Keyboard & Mouse pane of the System Preferences application.

Common Key Combination	Meaning
	New (window, document, and so on)
	Close window
	Quit application
	Save document
	Save document as (with a new name )
	Print
	Preferences
	Hide application
	Copy
	Cut
	Paste
	Stop (interrupt or cancel)

TIP

Mac OS X and its applications have many more key combinations than these; you can find them all by looking in the menus, which show the key combinations along with the commands to which they correspond .

Return and Enter

It must be noted that, on the Mac, the Enter key and the Return key have different meanings. Return is a text-editing key, using the original " carriage return" meaning from the days of typewriters. When you press Return , the cursor moves down a line and to the left end of whatever window you're typing in.

The Enter key (which in Windows has the same meaning as the Mac's Return key) is a little more specialized. When you press Enter (usually found on the numeric keypad), Mac OS X interprets the keystroke to mean "Perform the default action in the current window." A window typically has a single flashing blue button in the lower right, which represents the default action for that window; pressing Enter simulates clicking that button. In other words, if you're typing in a text box, pressing Return will start a new paragraph; pressing Enter will cause the program to accept the changes and close the window, as though you had clicked the OK button. Some applications don't behave exactly according to this rule, but most do.

In this application window, press Return to start a new line of text; press Enter to accept the changes and close the window (as if you'd clicked the OK button).