Productivity with Keyboard Shortcuts (Mac OSX)

A couple months ago, I was at a conference where I was presenting with a bunch of friends. One night as we were putting some final touches on one of our sessions, my friend Chris, was basically in awe at how I was working on my Macbook.  To paraphrase his awe: "I sold Apple computers at the Apple store and I didn't even know you could do that."

Since that night, if the question comes up about a keyboard shortcut for something, I'm their go to person.

Here are some of the keyboard shortcuts that I use on a regular basis to keep the work flow smooth. Many of these will transfer over to Windows or Chromebooks by using the Control button instead of Command (⌘).

Google Chrome:

Command(⌘)-L - Take control and highlight all text in the Omnibox (address bar)

• Great for quickly going to new addresses or starting new searches without clicking on the mouse

Command(⌘)-T - Open a new tab in Chrome

• Extension of this, hold command as you click a link to open the link in a new tab

⌘-Shift-T - Open the previously closed tab

• This also will continue working for a while as it will keep opening previously closed tabs

⌘-`(~) - Switch between open windows of a program

• This is great for running multiple user accounts in Chrome and quickly switching between the user windows

⌘-D - Bookmark the address that you are currently viewing

⌘-Number Keys - Go to that number tab open in the window (1-9)

⌘-opt-shift-v - Paste and match destination formatting

• Great for pasting into Google Docs from another site where the font is different

Bonus Google Chrome:

Some individual Chrome extensions allow the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts to launch an extension or perform a function.  Example: with Evernote WebClipper, pressing `(~) will launch the web clipper extension.

Mac OSx

⌘-Spacebar - Go to Spotlight Search bar 

• Once again, launch an application by doing the shortcut and starting to type the application name and press enter...no cursor or mouse clicking.

⌘-shift-3 - Take a screenshot of the whole screen

⌘-shift-4 - Take a screenshot after cropping/capturing a certain area

⌘-shift-4 then Spacebar - Take a screenshot of a certain window (the cursor turns into a camera)

• Even more options for this as well: Click on a menu option in the window, do the shortcut, and take a picture of just the drop down menu

⌘-Tab - Switch between open application on your computer - continuously press the tab button while holding down the ⌘ button and you can keep moving through your applications

⌘-option-Esc - Force Quit - if an application has stopped responding, hit the shortcut and select the app to close

This is the bulk of them for now, but I have some good shortcuts for using the trackpad on a MacBook Pro or Magic Trackpad and some reminders of the shortcuts in Google Apps.