Getting To Know the Mac Keyboard

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a tour of the Mac Keyboard. 

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So the Mac Keyboard has changed over the years. The current one looks like this if you get one of the new MacBook Pros. It actually looks pretty similar if you get one of the current iMacs as well. Of course each iMac comes with its own color matched keyboard as well as white keys as opposed to the black keys of the MacBook Pro keyboard. But the keys themselves are pretty much the same. 

Let's start our tour with the Modifier Keys. There are five modifier keys. Command, Option, Control, Shift, and the fn or Globe key. Modifier keys are primarily used to modify other keys. They don't usually do much by themselves. So, for instance, if you wanted to quit an app you might use Command and then Q. If you wanted to Copy or Paste you might use Command C or Command V. Sometimes you combine them. So, for instance, you might say Command Option Control and then a letter to issue a keyboard shortcut command. Now some of these modifier keys have duplicate keys on the right side of the keyboard. You'll find Shift, Option, and Command here as well. In most cases it doesn't matter which one you use. You can use the Command key on either side of the keyboard and it will work the same. The Command key is the primary modifier key. You'll find that most keyboard shortcuts require the Command key and a letter or the Command key plus other modifier keys and a letter. There's a special symbol on the Command key and you'll often see this in the Menu Bar and in documentation to indicate Command. The Option key is probably the most used modifier key after Command. It also has a special symbol that you'll see used in the Menu Bar and documentation. Sometimes the Option key is referred to as the Alt key. On Window's keyboards Alt is used instead of Option. On some Mac keyboards, particularly older ones, you'll find both the word Option and Alt on this key. So if you want to be technically correct you should call this the Option key but calling it the Alt key is fine. 

The Control modifier key is used as well for lots of things. Sometimes it's used without the Command key. For instance Control left and right help you navigate full screen apps and desktop spaces in Mission Control. There is a simple symbol for this that you'll see used in the Menu Bar as well.  The Shift key is often used in conjunction with Command and the other modifier keys for more keyboard shortcuts. But the Shift key also works to capitalize any letter that you type. Now the fn key is being used more and more in modern macOS. Primarily what you use this for is to change the functionality of the F keys at the top of the keyboard. The F keys can either be used as special function keys, things like the two keys on the left being screen brightness and the three keys on the right controlling volume. But they can also be used to send the signals for the F keys to the app that you're using. These would be F1, F2, F3, and so on. If the app you're using uses those special keys as shortcuts then you would have to use the keys in this mode. If you look in System Preferences in Keyboard and then you look at this checkbox here it determines how the fn key and the F keys interact. So depending upon whether you have this checked or not checked you'll get either the special functions, like volume control, when you press those keys or you'll get the F keys like F1, F2, F3. Then to get the opposite you hold the fn key down and press those same keys. There is no right way to do it here. It  really depends on how you want to use these keys. Some people may never need to use F1, F2, and F3 at all while others might use graphics apps or audio apps that use these all the time. But however you set it the fn key will reverse what those F keys do. 

Now the fn key is also called the Globe key now. This is pretty new. Older keyboards will just have fn on this key and not the Globe. You can use the Globe key to easily access the special characters like emoji. So it kind of mimics how the iPhone virtual keyboard looks with that little globe at the bottom left hand corner. Also note there is a control that determines what happens when you press the fn key. You can set it to Do Nothing, Start Dictation By Pressing it Twice, Show the Emoji & Symbols viewer, or Change Input Source. 

Now I mentioned how to type capital letters. You hold the Shift key down and then type a letter. You can use the Caps Lock key to set all those to be upper case. So if you hold the Caps Lock key down a small green light will appear in that key and any time you press one of the letters you'll get upper case characters. You could use that if you need to type a long string of upper case characters instead of holding the Shift key down. But you could also go into System Preferences and then Keyboard and then Modifier keys. You can reassign what happens when you press the Caps Lock key. You could make it another Option or another Command key or the Escape key, for instance. In fact you could reassign the modifier keys right here as you like. Of course that will make it confusing if you change which key is used for which modifier as it won't match what you see on the keyboard. 

Now the Return key is typically used to go to the next line when you're typing in a word processor. But often you could use it in other situations. Like you go to save a file you type the name and you could press Return rather than clicking the OK button. Sometimes you'll hear people refer to this as the Enter key. The enter key is usually the one that's on the numeric keypad. If you have a Mac with an extended keyboard you'll see Return in this location and you'll see Enter at the bottom right hand corner of the numeric keypad. But often they do the same thing.

The Delete Key, when typing, will remove the previous character. So it's the equivalent to a backspace key. If somebody says hit the backspace key then you could just use the Delete key. Incidentally, if you ever want to forward Delete you can hold the fn key and press Delete. It will act just like forward Delete on a Windows computer. 

The Escape Key, always spelled esc, is at the top left corner and it's often used to dismiss things. Like you could go to save a file and you decide you just want to hit Cancel. Instead of pressing cancel you can usually press the escape key. 

The Tab key is used while typing to insert a tab. So if you're trying to have columns of data in a document you can use the Tab key. That's the traditional use. But we use it a lot today in conjunction with the modifier keys to do certain functions on the computer like Command Tab will switch apps. Often when entering data into an interface like a form on the web you can press Tab to move between fields. 

At the bottom right hand corner of the keyboard you'll see Arrow keys and these could be used to move the text cursor around in a document. Sometimes when you're working in graphics apps you can nudge whatever is selected by one pixel in any direction with the arrow keys. They are also used in a variety of different keyboard shortcuts. 

Now let's look at some keys that have some names that you should know about. This key is the Slash key. Here you get the Backslash key. Notice this is going in the opposite direction. So if some instructions tell you to use the backslash key this is the one they are talking about. These keys are called Brackets. When you type them without the Shift key you get what are called Square Brackets. With the Shift key you get Curly Brackets. Programmers use these all the time. But if you're not a programmer you may be confused if somebody said to use the right curly bracket. 

These keys look pretty straight forward but they are usually called the Plus and Minus keys. But notice that they are actually the Minus or Dash and an Equals key. For some reason it's pretty common to refer to the Equals key as the Plus key and even to have keyboard commands where you would zoom in with Command + but you're actually doing Command =. You don't need to use the shift key. 

This key over here has what looks like a backwards apostrophe. That's actually called a Backtick. It's used some in programming. You Shift and you get that funny little symbol that's called a Tilde. So if somebody says press Command and Tilde that's the key that you use. 

Finally we go to this key that's at the top right of most of Mac keyboards today. But older Mac keyboards have something different here. Either a Power button to turn a Mac on or hold it to turn it off. Or an Eject key to eject a CD or DVD at the optimal drive. But now it's mostly the Touch ID key. So this isn't a plain ordinary key. You can actually hold your finger over it and identify yourself rather than entering a password. If your Mac prompts you for Touch ID this is the key that you would use. But in addition to that it also works as the Power button. Being able to power up or shutdown or sleep your Mac by holding it depending on your settings. So if you have a key like this that has an indented circle on it and somebody says use the Power button. This is the Power button. 

So I hope you found this useful especially if you've switched recently from Windows to Mac. Thanks for watching.