From: Jim Scott
Date: January 2003

I just bought Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition a couple of days ago. I'm a longtime PC guy switching to my first Mac (iMac with a 17-inch wide flat screen, OS X 10.2).

Of course I'm just getting started with reading the book, but I've already learned a lot that I need to know. For example, your description of the kernel panic on page 643 was just the explanation I needed. My iMac was hanging up with this message repeatedly, and Apple technical support didn't seem to know what it was. I'm pretty certain now that it was being caused by the external floppy disk drive.

Here's one thing that I think is missing from your manual. In Windows, I've long depended on certain keystrokes for moving around while editing text. They work in all Windows applications. For example, "End" goes to the end of the current line; "Home" goes to the beginning of the current line; "Ctrl-Right arrow" moves one word to the right; "Ctrl-Left arrow moves one word to the left; "Ctrl-Del" deletes the next word to the right; "Ctrl-Backspace" deletes the next word to the left. None of these work on the iMac, except in MS Office. I'm lost without them.

Is there any way to turn these key combinations on? And if not, why isn't this an important issue? I've found no reference to the subject in Mac-oriented magazines, Mac help screens, or Mac books.

Thanks,
Jim Scott

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Hi Jim,

In Windows, you may have grown accustomed to certain common keystrokes for navigating text-key combinations that make the insertion point jump to the beginning or end of a word, line, or document, for example.

Mac OS X programs offer similar navigation keystrokes, as you can see here:

Function	Windows keys	Mac keys
Move to previous/next word	Ctrl+arrow keys	Option-arrow keys
Move to beginning/end of line	Home/End	Home/End*
Move to previous/next paragraph	Ctrl+up/down arrows*	Option-up/down arrows*
Move to top/bottom of window	Home/End	Home/End (but see below)
Select all text	Ctrl+A	Command-A
Select text, one letter at a time	Shift+arrow keys	Shift+arrow keys
Select text, one word at a time	Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys	Option+Shift+arrow keys
Undo	Ctrl+Z	Command-Z
Cut, Copy, Paste	Ctrl+X, C, P	Command+X, C, P
Close window	Alt+F4	Command-W
Switch open programs	Alt+Tab	Command-Tab
Minimize all windows	Windows key+D	Option-Command-click Finder icon on Dock

* in some programs

Incidentally, the keystroke for jumping to the top or bottom of a window varies widely on the Mac. You need Command-Home/End in Microsoft Word, Command-up/down arrow in TextEdit and Stickies, and Home/End in iPhoto 2 and Finder list windows.

As a consolation prize, though, here's a bit of good news: all Cocoa programs--TextEdit, Stickies, iPhoto, iDVD, Safari, Keynote, iChat, iCal, Mail, Address Book, and so on--offer an amazing quantity of consistent, Unix-based navigation keystrokes that should last you the rest of your life. Here they are:

• Control-A. Moves your insertion point to the beginning of the paragraph. (Mnemonic: A = beginning of the alphabet.)

• Control-E. Deposits your insertion point at the end of the paragraph. (Mnemonic: E = End.)

• Control-D. Forward delete. (Deletes the letter to the right of the insertion point.)

• Control-K. Instantly deletes all text from the insertion point to the right end of the line. (Mnemonic: K = Kills the rest of the line.)

• Control-O. Inserts a paragraph break, much like Return, but leaves the insertion point where it was, above the break. This is the ideal trick for breaking a paragraph in half when you've just thought of a better ending for the first part.

• Control-T. Moves the insertion point one letter to the right--and along with it, drags whichever letter was to its left. (Mnemonic: T = Transpose letters.)

• Option-Delete. Deletes the entire word to the left of the insertion point. When you're typing along in a hurry, and you discover that you've just made a typo, this is the keystroke you want. It's much faster to nuke the previous word and retype it than to fiddle around with the mouse and the insertion point just to fix one letter.

Four additional keystrokes duplicate the functions of the arrow keys. Still, as long as you've got your pinky on that Control key. . . .

• Control-B, Control-F. Moves the insertion point one character to the left or right, just like the left and right arrow keys. (Mnemonic: Back, Forward.)

• Control-N, Control-P. Moves the insertion point one row down or up, like the down and up arrow keys. (Mnemonic: Next, Previous.)

David

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