Our Mac keyboard shortcuts will save your life. That's why we're here. This guide to the essential keyboard shortcuts for Mac users covers the most useful hotkey combinations that will Command-T: Show or hide Fonts window. Command-Left Arrow: Move the cursor to the beginning of the line.
How Windows Keyboard Shortcuts Compare to Mac Shortcuts Keyboard shortcuts are combinations of key presses that let you carry out a task without navigating through the menus. PCs have two kinds of keyboard shortcuts.
For some, you hold down the Ctrl key and a letter key; for others, you press the Alt key and type one letter from each menu item name — often, but not always, the first letter. Mac keyboard shortcuts are like the first type, but you use the Command key instead of the Ctrl key. Following are examples of Mac keyboard shortcuts: Keyboard Shortcut Act ion Command+C Copy Command+X Cut Command+V Paste Command+A Select All Command+F Find Command+G Find Again Command+S Save Command+Z Undo Replacing the Ctrl key press with the Command key also applies to most Ctrl key shortcuts in programs, such as Microsoft Office. The letters in keyboard shortcut combinations are always shown capitalized on-screen, but the Mac recognizes the lowercase versions as well. Thus, you can type either Command+Q or Command+q to quit (exit) the program.
Although the Mac OS X menu layout appears to be intuitive and easy to follow, Apple does get a little carried away with shortcuts. There are dozens of them, so don’t try to remember them all. OS X displays the available shortcut for each menu item right in the drop-down menu itself. Some combinations use different and even multiple control keys. Apple uses other symbols in addition to the Command symbol and Apple symbol to indicate these keys:. Option: This key often modifies a shortcut or menu item by telling it to do more. So, for example, Command+W closes the front window.
Option+Command+W closes all windows for the front application. Shortcuts can be complex. The shortcut in TextEdit for Edit→Paste and Match Style is Option+Shift+Command+V. Control: This key’s symbol looks like a hat. The key is pressed in combination with a mouse click to mean right-click. Shift: Either the right or left Shift key may be used, but caps lock has no effect on shortcuts that include a Shift key.
Escape: This key’s symbol looks a lot like the power button icon, but it’s different. The line is at an angle and has a little arrow pointing out.
Escape is a shortcut for Cancel in dialog boxes. Many other Mac keyboard shortcuts exist.
Open the Apple menu and choose System Preferences→Keyboard & Mouse and then choose Keyboard Shortcuts to see a list. The Keyboard & Mouse pane has many other options for customizing your input experience. If you have difficulty holding down combinations of keys, you can activate the sticky keys feature in the System Preferences→Universal Access pane.
I've yet to find a guide that is both (a) complete, and (b) compatible with recent macOS releases. I have a Windows keyboard that I'd like to set up on my Mac to work with the same shortcuts. Some things I've tried include setting Application Shortcuts, and modifying key actions in the keyboard settings (i.e., setting ⌘ to take the action ⌥) - these sort of work, but still leave me without several shortcuts. Shortcuts I'm specifically hoping to get on my Mac: - ctrl + c: copy - ctrl + v: paste - ctrl + x: cut - ctrl + a: select all - ctrl + s: save - ctrl + shift + s: save all - end: end of line - home: front of line - ctrl + end: end of document - ctrl + home: front of document I know there are tons more that I'd like, but I assume if I can get the Ctrl, Shift, End, and Home keys working, then the rest of my normal keyboard shortcuts will kind of fall into place from there.
![Windows keyboard shortcuts for special characters Windows keyboard shortcuts for special characters](https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/02/feature-shortcuts-full.png)
So basically, I'm looking for a way to get my Windows keyboard to act like a Windows keyboard, on a Mac. Is this possible? This question has already been asked and (quasi) answered in a comment by Honestly, you will be better off long-term learning the difference rather than trying to force the Mac to behave like Windows. I've been working cross-platform for 25 years & I've found no better system than 'just work with it, not against it' To further expand on this, it's important to note that the shortcuts in macOS are not just universal, they are part of the standards for UX/UI design for macOS. Every application (developer) expects this to be the case and may use the shortcuts you referenced above for app specific functions. Remapping those to conform to Windows will undoubtedly cause issues.
From Apple's: Respect standard keyboard shortcuts and create app-specific shortcuts for frequently used commands. Keyboard shortcuts let people activate menu items and actions by pressing specific key combination. And finally, as I have said in the comments of the same linked question: I came from Windows (on the Desktop, UNIX on the server) background and I still use 3 platforms (Mac, Windows, BSD) almost daily.
![Keyboard Keyboard](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TwMFA.jpg)
After a little while, you easily switch from Windows to Mac shortcuts and vice-versa.