machine you’ll need to adapt to the new shortcuts on Mac. There are bucketloads of features so we've included ten useful ones to get you started.
then chances are you’ve got the gestures sorted. If you’re using a desktop it’s a good idea to invest in the Magic TrackPad accessory so you can also benefit from smooth transitions between apps, desktops and windows.
We prefer unticking the natural scroll direction - but it’s worth experimenting to see what you find comfortable.
OS X has a built-in screen recording facility allowing users to capture everything on the display. This is handy for making instructional videos and can even be useful in compliance situations. To record a video open up QuickTime Player and from the file menu, click on “New Screen Recording”. Then choose the audio source such as the internal mic and whether you want to include mouse clicks.
When ready, hit record and make your video. It’s possible to record the whole screen or a selection. Afterwards, you can edit it and upload it to YouTube.
4. Resize, crop, fine-tune images & add a signature
The Preview app is more than just an image viewer. It can crop, edit and adjust the colours of an image/
From
OS X 10.7 onwards, the Preview app allows you to add your signature to documents and mail them digitally.
In Preview preferences, navigate to the Signature tab and click on the “+” button. Write your name in black ink on a blank sheet of white paper and hold it to the Mac’s webcam, and watch as it magically appears onscreen.
To put your signature to a document, bring up the Edit toolbar and click on the signature icon. Draw a box and add your signature to the form. You printing, signing and faxing days will be a thing of the past.
5. Dictation
Voice dictation was built into Mountain Lion and has now been improved within Mavericks.
To enable dictation, go the System Preferences and choose “Dictation and Speech” and make sure the radio button for Dictation is “On”. Then to use dictation, just press the Fn key twice in succession and start talking. You can also change this shortcut to whatever combination of keystrokes works best for you.
In Mavericks, there is an “Enhanced Dictation” tool. Clicking on the check box downloads a 700MB language file so all speech processing is done on the Mac locally instead of through Apple's cloud servers. This also means the thirty-second limit on speech you dictate is no longer applicable and you can chat to your heart’s content.
6. Add website clips to Dashboard
Dashboard is the half-forgotten feature of OS X and only ever pops up when you accidentally swipe too far left.
You can add web pages as widgets and put them on the dashboard for future reference. To do this, open up Safari and make a clip of a website, open it in Safari, then choose “Open in Dashboard”. Use your mouse to select the area of the webpage you want on the dashboard and then click add (on the top right of the window).
This then puts the clipping onto the dashboard (there’s an “I” in the bottom right of the clip that allows you to change the frame appearance). The clip should automatically update, but if it doesn’t appear to Command + R will refresh the clip.
7. Kill the Dashboard
Perhaps having web clips isn’t your thing. You can get rid of the Dashboard by opening up the Terminal app and typing “
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean true”, then hitting enter. Relaunch the dock by typing in “killall Dock” and you'll never see this feature again.
8. Remote control a Mac
OS X has a built remote sharing feature called Back To My Mac.
You need to ensure the Mac you want to remotely connect to is on and synced with your iCloud account (this is done via the Systems Preferences app). You should also make sure that Back To My Mac is enabled by ticking the box. In the sharing preferences part of system preferences, make sure the remote management is enabled on the Mac you need to connect to as well. On the router the remote Mac is connected to ensure that UPnP is enabled. All of this should then allow your remote Mac to check in with Apple’s server to let them know its internet location.
From the Mac you are working on make sure that iCloud is turned on and you are logged in with your account to that service, turn on Back To My Mac as well as sharing. It’s important to make sure you are using the same Apple ID on both computers. Then it is just a case of clicking on the remote Mac on the sidebar in a Finder window and clicking on Share Screen. A window will open and display the remote Mac’s screen.
9. Copy Files to and from a remote Mac
Back To My Mac not only lets you share the screen but lets you copy files to and from a remote Mac. If you have followed the previous process to share the screen, to access files, you need to enable File Sharing under the Sharing icon in System Preferences.
In the Finder window go to the remote Mac you wish to share files with and you click on “Connect As”. Type in your Apple ID and password and now you have access to the hard drive. You can move files between the two systems as you would with a remote server.
10. Merge all finder windows
This is one for Mavericks users. Finder now supports tabs so you can consolidate multiple panes into one window. Instead of dragging them all together one-by-one, in the Finder menu choose Window the click on Merge All Windows and you're done.
11. Share a DVD drive with others
The latest Mac desktops and laptops don't have optical drives but it you need to use physical media it's still possible. If you have an old Mac with a
Super-drive you can set it up to share this with your drive-less devices.
To do this, open up System Preferences on the Mac with a DVD drive, click on Sharing and in that window tick the box marked “DVDor CD sharing”. Then insert the disc you want to share. Go the drive-less Mac (making sure it is on the same network) and open the Finder window. Look at the sidebar for “Remote Disc” in the Devices section. Click on it and then double-click the computer you want to connect to.
12. Find another printer
Working in a large department you may find a printer to be busy churning out a large document. You can set up your Mac to print to the next available printer if there is more than one on the network. To do this, go into System Preferences and click on Printers and Scanners.
Select the printers from the list that you want to be in the pool (To select multiple printer, hold down the Command button and click on additional printers. Click on Create Printer Pool and give it a name. Click OK.
Then next time you print a document, you can choose the printer pool from the pop-up menu.
13. Give your guests safe access to a Mac
Guest accounts are great if you want to let someone borrow your Mac to check email or browse the web.
This can be enabled by going into System Preferences and clicking on Users and Groups. This then puts the Guest User account on the login screen. Guests can use this account and once finished it wipes that session.
14. Find out what your Mac is up to
Sometimes you may find the Mac is running slow and you have no idea why. There is a handy little app that lets you see what exactly is going on under the hood.
Activity Monitor can be found in the Utilities Folder. This has columns showing CPU usage of individual apps and processes and how much memory it is using. If you find a problematic app hogging resources, you can click on Quit Process to shut the offending app down. You can also use this utility to look at usage graphs as well.
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