Tips for Using Your Mac Laptop in School and Beyond

Recently the online technology news site 9to5Mac hosted a thread on Twitter where they asked "What's a hidden Mac trick more people should know about?" The thread contained many excellent tips and tricks, and as I read them, I was reminded of many others. Inspired by this list, I have compiled several tips here that I believe are useful for classroom and general school use here in Barrington 220. Please note that these tips are not necessarily "hidden," but I do use all of them myself and find them useful. 

Access Emoji and Other Special Characters

Use the keyboard shortcut Control+Command+Space to display the full menu to access all special characters available on the Mac. Click the character to select it and then copy it (to paste it later); double-click the character to insert it at the insertion point in a document.

You can also access the menu using fn+E (function+E). This may be easier to remember since the "E" stands for "emoji."

Three-Finger Click for a Definition (and More)

Three-finger click on any word in almost any application to get a pop-up menu with a dictionary definition, thesaurus entry, and other information.

Access Spotlight

The Mac has a feature called "Spotlight" that originally allowed a file search function on your Mac. Over the years, Spotlight added many more features and now gives search results for Applications, websites, Mail, Contacts, images, web search history, dictionary, calendar, music, and many file formats. Spotlight also has features in addition to search results:

• Convert currency
• Convert temperature
• Convert measurements
• Solve math problems (including equations)

Zoom in to Your Mac Screen

On iPad, it’s easy to pinch to zoom to make text and other views larger. A similar function is also available on a Mac screen if you have it set up.

1. Open System Preferences (in the Dock or under the Apple Menu).
2. Click to open Accessibility.
3. Click Zoom in the left column.
4. Check the box Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom: and select ^Control from the pop-up menu.
5. Close System Preferences.

From now on, you may press and hold the Control key and use a 2-finger scroll gesture (up and down) to zoom in and out anywhere on the Mac screen. The cursor arrow will be the center of the zoom.

Use Text Replacement to Make Typing Easier

You can create custom shortcuts to easily type individual characters, emoji, or even blocks of text. For example, you could set up the feature to type the text "/smile" and make the emoji smile character appear or set up "/sig" to automatically insert your personal contact information. 

1. Open System Preferences (in the Dock or under the Apple Menu).
2. Click to open Keyboard.
3. Click the Text tab at the top.
4. Click the + in the bottom-left corner.
5. Type a text in the Replace column (use a text string you will likely not type for another purpose).
6. Type (or paste) the character(s), text, or emoji(s) in the With column.
7. Close System Preferences.

Use the Preview App to Make PDF Edits

Use the Preview App (in the Applications folder) to open a PDF on your Mac, and you will have access to many basic PDF editing features.

In the left column of a multi-page PDF, you can click to drag the page thumbnails to rearrange or delete them. You can also drag pages from other open PDFs to add pages to a PDF.

You may also use the Markup icon (a pen tip in a circle) at the top-right of the Preview window to access several tools to add text, shapes, and annotate a PDF.

Learn Even More!

If you would like to see all the tips that inspired this article, check out the original @9to5mac tweet here.