7 Jan 2011

Mac Shortcuts

Moving to Apple means finding a new set of applications development tools. So just as a short-cut for other Apple newbies here are the tools that I have found useful.

General

Spaces

Spaces is a nifty feature of the MacOS operating system. I basically have six spaces set up:

• Mail
• Safari
• Pages and Numbers documents
• Software development / Drawing
• Spare - used for other activities
• Music, video, misc.

Short cuts

I can never remember short cut keys like screen capture - so here are a few useful ones:

cmd-spacebar	Spotlight
cmd-shift-3	screen capture of your entire screen - to desk top
cmd-shift-4	select area of the screen - to desk top
ctrl-cmd-shift-3	screen capture of your entire screen - to Clipboard
ctrl-cmd-shift-4	select area of the screen - to Clipboard

Printing Labels

Apple is not very good at this, ie. it is not native in Pages or Numbers (where as MS Word and Excel has label templates).

In Numbers:   export your data into a .CSV format. ( File / Export / .CSV.)

In Address Book:   Import the .CSV document that you just created. All of the contacts that were in the Numbers .CSV file should now all be in your contacts in Address Book.

In Address Book, you can create a Group that contains your addresses (such as “Christmas Cards”). Highlight the Group name, go to File, then Print, and then under Layout you'll see the settings for labels, envelopes, etc.

It is quite simple to create your own label layouts in the Print dialog.

Come on Apple. Please sort out label printing directly from Numbers and Pages.

Mail merge

1. Select the contacts you want to merge in Address Book. 

2. Open the envelope or letter template you want to use in Pages. 

3. Drag the Selected contacts from Address Book to the address field in the Pages document.

It will prompt you to create a merge document, just hit Ok, and you are done. 

Simples!

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