Using the keyboard to navigate and perform various tasks can be a great timesaver in Mac OS X. Keyboard shortcuts and commands can be used to a great extent in mobile computing to speed up tasks that would take longer to do with the mouse. After reading this document you’ll hardly ever use your mouse or trackpad again

You’ll learn how to:

• move Items from one Application to another without Drag and Drop
• close Documents without clicking on the close button
• take a Screenshot of your Screen and save the file as an png on the desktop

All this magic behavior is done by pressing one or more special keys – also called Modifier keys – at the same time. To become a real Apple Geek you must learn those Keyboard shortcuts by heart.

The Swiss Keyboard Layout

The Swiss Keyboard is a QWERTZ Keyboard, called after the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: Q, W, E, R, T and Z. It differs from the QWERTY layout by interchanging the “Z” and “Y” keys. This is more convenient since “Z” is much more used in the German language than “Y” and “T” and “Z” often appear next to each other in many German Words (Katze, Satz, schwitzen).

Special Keys

There are several “special” keys on an Apple keyboard.

Key	Function
	The command keys – also well known as the Apple Keys – are on each side of the space bar and are easily reachable by the thumb fingers. Almost every Mac OS keyboard shortcut is based on the command key. We will use them a lot.
	The Alt key used to change (alternate) the function of other pressed keys. By holding down the Alt key you can also print out almost every special characters.
	As many of you may have noticed, the Shift key is used to type capital letters. There are 2 shift keys on a Mac keyboard which are easily reachable by the little fingers. The shift key also perform some special operations in conjunction with another modifier key.
Tab	In Text processing Applications such as Microsoft Word or TextEdit the Tabulator key is used to advance the cursor to the next tab stop. You will see that it has another purpose in many “switch something” shortcuts.
Ctrl	The control key is less used in Mac OS and almost never performs any function when it is pressed by itself. It will perform a special operation in conjunction with another modifier key.
Fn	We typically find the Fn (Function)Key in compact keyboard layouts like laptops. It combines keys which are normaly kept seperate such as the delete key (FN – Backspace). If you have Fn on your keyboard the F1 – F12 keys are usually occupied with some Multimedia or System Control Functions. You must hold the Fn key to use the underlying (normal) F1-F12 functions.
Esc	The Esc (Escape) key is mostly used to stop, cancel or abort an action or dialog.

Basic Shortcuts

Let’s start with some basic shortcuts. How to type. I’ve listed the most requested shortcuts from Ex-Windows Users:

Task	Windows	Mac
Copy	Ctrl – C	-C
Cut	Ctrl – X	-X
Paste	Ctrl – V	-V
Undo	Ctrl – Z	– Z
Select All	Ctrl – A	- A
Save	Ctrl – S	– S
Open	Ctrl – O (within Application), Enter (in Windows Ex- plorer), Context – O (on the Desktop)	– O
Close (Document, File, Window)	Ctrl – F4	– W
Close all (Documents, Files, Win- dow) within Application	Shift – Alt – F4	– – W
Quit Application	Alt – F4	– Q
New Folder	Context – W – F	– – N
Eject/Disconnect (CD/DVD, USB-Stick, Network)		– E
Delete File/Folder (send to Bin/Trash)	Delete	Delete or – Backspace
Empty Bin/Trash		-  Backspace
Task Manager	Ctrl – Alt – Delete	-  - ESC

Special Characters

Well, you may want to know how to type the @ (at) character on a Swiss Keyboard. As you might have seen it is located near the center of the keyboard, more precise on the “G” key. You can type the “at” by holding down the Alt key. Here are some other special caracters often used in Switzerland. They all make use of the x key.

Shortcut	Caractere
– G	@ (at)
– 3	#
– 5	[
- 6	]
– 7	|
– 8	{
– 9	}
– – 7	\ (Backslash)
– N	~ (Tilde)
– S	ß (Double S)

Additional Shortcuts
Good to know

Shortcut	Function
– -Z	Redo
– – S	Save as
– U	Revert to saved
– P	Print
– – P	Print with Setup
– O	Open a Document / File
– N	New Window / Document
– W	Close the Window / Document
– – W	Close ALL Windows / Documents
– D	Don’t Save (within Close Diaolog)
– M	Minimize Application
– H	Hide Application
– – H	Hide all other Applications
– Space	Spotlight Search
– ,	Preferences (within an Application)
– .	Cancel (within Close Dialog)
Ctrl –	Enter Front Row
– (Ctrl) – – 3	Screenshot (entire screen), the result will be copied into the clipboard (like on Windows…) You can save the screenshot as a png file to the Desktop without holding the Ctrl key
– (Ctrl) – – 4	Screenshot of an arbitrary area (drag a rectangle), the re- sult will be copied into the clipboard (like on Windows…) You can save the screenshot as a png file to the Desktop without holding the Ctrl key
– (Ctrl) - – 4, then press the Space Bar	Take a Screenshot of any window (choose a window), the result will be copied into the clipboard (like on Windows…) You can save the screenshot as a png file to the Desktop without holding the Ctrl key
–	Switch between Applications (to the right)
– –	Switch between Applications (to the left)
– – Esc	Force Quit / End Task Dialog

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