How to Customize Keyboard Shortcuts On a Mac

Mac Os X is very intuitive and easy to use. If you want to speed things up even more, you can learn how to use and customize keyboard shortcuts.

First, quit any open applications by clicking the command key plus Q for each program that’s running. Then, click the Apple icon in the top left and choose System Preferences from the menu. In the System Preferences Window, click the icon for keyboard and the mouse settings. Then, click the keyboard shortcuts option in the top of the window. This opens a list of commands that you can customize. Just double click the shortcut you want to change. Do not click the name of the command in the description column, make sure you’re actually double clicking the shortcut in the right column. Then, press the new keyboard shortcut that you want to use. If that shortcut is already taken, you’ll see a yellow warning triangle next to the duplicated shortcut. In that case, you have to change the shortcut.

Here are a couple of the warning triangles. You can disable a shortcut that’s attached to a command. Just uncheck the box next to the command description. If you changed your mind, you can return to this section and click the button to restore defaults. If you’re done creating shortcuts, close the keyboard and mouse preferences window to save your changes. Customize keyboard commands are great way to help quickly navigate OS X Leopard.


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