When users switch from Windows to Mac one of the problems they have is adjusting to the new keyboard shortcuts. Mac has some different keyboard shortcuts than Windows. They're similar though which sometimes even makes it more difficult because the differences are subtle. For instance let's start by looking at the basics of Copy, Cut, and Paste. Copy on Windows is Control C. On the Mac it's almost the same thing.
It's Command C. Let's look at what the difference is. If you look at the Mac keyboard you'll see here that you've got four modifier keys. The Shift key, the Control key, the Option key, and Command key. So you see there's a Control key there so right away you think, okay just like on Windows. But on Mac the primary modifier key is Command, not control like Windows.
So, in fact, most keyboard shortcuts on Windows that are Control plus the letter are actually Command plus a letter on Mac. So instead of control C for copy it's Command C. Control is kind of a secondary modifier key. It's not as important as Command. Most things use Command for the modifier. So if I were to select some text here and want to Copy and Paste it I would use Command C and then Command V to paste. If I wanted to cut it I would use Command X and then Command V to paste.
Likewise if I wanted to select All, instead of Control A it's Command A. If I were to make a mistake, say delete everything, I would use Command Z rather than Control Z to undo. Undo is kind of interesting because there's also a Redo command that's typically available. So, for instance, if I type some new text and then I delete it and I Command Z to undo then I realize that I want to redo what I just undid. On Windows very often it's Control Y.
But on Mac it's not Command Y. It's actually Command Shift Z. So the shift kind of reverses the Command Z to make it a Redo. Now this varies by app. So here in Pages I can see that Undo Typing is Command Z and Redo is Shift Command Z. However some apps, like for instance Adobe apps, still use Command Y for Redo.
So you can always check for any keyboard shortcut by going into the Menu and then looking on the right side and seeing everything that's there. Like for instance Select All there's Command A.
Notice it uses the symbol on the Command key rather than the word Command. So let's look at some other shortcuts that are different Windows to Mac. So one is using the F1 key to access help. That doesn't work on the Mac.
But you do have this Help menu up here and you can click it and get to different help things there. A keyboard shortcut that always works to bring up the Help menu is Command Shift slash. That's easy to remember because the slash key, the shift on that is the question mark.
So you're kind of doing Command question mark. Command Shift slash and then you can immediately start typing for getting help on something specific or looking for a menu item or you can down arrow right to one of these documents or windows that will popup and hit Return to bring it up. Another one you may find that on Windows you use Alt and tab to go between apps.
On the Mac it's Command tab. So that's a little different there because typically you would go from Control to Command. But here you're going Alt to Command. So you can Command tab to go between apps. So another one is using Alt F4 to close something in Windows.
Close the window or close the app. On Mac you do various different things depending upon which one you want. So, for instance, to close a current window that's open you would use Command W and that closes, say if you have three Pages documents open it closes the front most on. If you have a one page document open it closes that window but Pages is still running.
If you want to quit the app then typically you use Command Q. This can vary by app but typically it's Command W for close and Command Q for quitting an app.
So another popular command I see on Windows is using F2 to rename a file. You don't need to do that on the Mac. All you need to do is select the file and you can click in the file name after it's selected and now you're in edit mode. You can edit the file name. Another quick way to get there is to hit the Return key and it immediately goes into edit mode for the file name for the file that's selected.
Note there's a key on your Mac keyboard that's labeled Option. On many versions of the Mac keyboard also you see the word Alt there. On Window systems you always refer to this as the Alt key, alternate key. On Mac you refer to it as the Option key but they are in fact the same key.
So sometimes you see people say one or the other. Now probably the most famous keyboard shortcut on Windows is Control Alt Delete to be able to force quit an app. The same thing on the Mac except it's Command Option Escape.
That brings up this window here which allows you to switch to an app or force quit an app by selecting it and pressing the force quit button. 8/16/18 @ 10:11 am Hi Gary, I am using Mac for years now but I never found one keyboard shortcut on my mac for the MS F2 when you are in excel. In MS – when you have selected a cell – with F2 it changes to the content of the cell and backward what is very valuable if you don’t want to change with your hand to the mouse and double click to access the content of the cell. I tried almost every keyboard combination that came to my mind but did not find it on the Mac.
Maybe you can help. Thanks a lot Olaf.
Main article: Keyboard shortcuts are a common aspect of most modern operating systems and associated software applications. Their use is pervasive enough that some users consider them an important element of their routine interactions with a computer. Whether used as a matter of personal preference or for, the pervasiveness of common conventions means that a meaningful comparison of keyboard shortcuts can be made across various widely used operating systems. Cells with a yellow background in the tables below denote Apple's. General shortcuts A note regarding 's shortcuts is that they can be changed and the below list contains the defaults. Some of the combinations are not true for localized versions of operating systems. For example, in a non-English version of Windows, the Edit menu is not always bound to the E shortcut.
Furthermore, many shortcuts (such as Ctrl+ Z, Alt+ E, etc.) are just common conventions and are not handled by the operating system. Whether such commands are implemented (or not) depends on how an actual application program (such as an editor) is written. Not all applications follow (all of) these conventions, so if it doesn't work, it isn't compatible. Action / Alt+ F, or F10 then F Ctrl+ F2, then F Alt+ F Meta+ `, then f Alt+ f (gvim) or Ctrl+ e (vim + NERDTree) Ctrl+ O Alt+ E Ctrl+ F2, then E Alt+ E Meta+ `, then e Alt+ e (gvim) View menu Alt+ V Ctrl+ F2, then V Alt+ V the last operation Ctrl+ Z, or Alt+ Backspace ⌘ Cmd+ Z Ctrl+ Z Ctrl+ x, then u or Ctrl+ / or Ctrl+ or Undo u Ctrl+ Z the last operation Ctrl+ Y, or Shift+ Alt+ Backspace ⇧ Shift+ ⌘ Cmd+ Z ⇧ Shift+ Ctrl+ Z, or Ctrl+ Y Same as undo, when undo is exhausted, it redoes. Move the cursor after one or more undos, and further undos will be redos.
^ Highlighted shortcuts are from the list of. ^ Requires full keyboard access active: System Preferences Keyboard Keyboard Shortcuts Full Keyboard Access All Controls Alternatively use Ctrl+ F7 to toggle this setting. Takes you to the 'Switch User' screen when has been enabled (enabled by default in XP). Shows task manager in Windows XP if the welcome screen is enabled. Otherwise displays an NT-style menu, with the option of launching the task manager; likewise for Vista.
^ On Mac OS, OS X, and macOS, the key commonly called ↵ Enter is properly called ↩ Return, while ⌅ Enter is a separate key normally located on the or invoked as ⌥ Opt+ ↩ Return (mainly on keyboards without a numeric keypad). For the concept of 'selected text' see also. In whole document (%), substitute ( s) fosh by fish, don't stop at one substitution per line ( g) and ask for confirmation for each substitution ( c). ^ In Microsoft Windows, all shortcuts with Alt+ Space followed by another key are language dependent.
The Alt+ Space combination opens the window menu, and the following key selects from the menu. As the menu labels (and their underlined hotkeys) vary with the Windows system language, the hotkeys are different for international versions of Microsoft Windows, and may change if users change their Windows system language preference. The given examples are valid for English user preferences/version of Windows.
The WinSplit window manager application for Windows knows to emulate this behaviour. There is no single consistent shortcut for closing a document or quitting an application in Windows XP. In many applications, Ctrl+ W or Ctrl+ F4 closes a document and Alt+ F4 quits. In other applications where each document is in its own window, such as later versions of, Ctrl+ W, Ctrl+ F4, and Alt+ F4 close a document, and there is no consistent shortcut for quitting an application. macOS uses ⌘ Cmd+ W Close (window), ⌘ Cmd+ Q Quit (application), and ⌘ Cmd+ ⌥ Opt+ Esc Force Quit (application); ⌥ Option+ F4 can be used to quit certain services or applications. Quit is closest to Kill. References.
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