Free Tips and Tricks

The following tips and practical techniques will save you time every time you use your computer. If you benefit from these, we know you will benefit even more from our hands-on, instructor-led small-group computer training classes, held in Long Beach, California.

Creating Fancy Email Messages on your Mac

Apple Mail, the simple little e-mail program most Mac users live in every day, can turn ordinary messages into masterpieces with just a few more clicks than you are using now.

Launch Mail and start a new message.
Click the Show Stationery button in the top-right corner of the window.
In the Stationery Pane that appears, select a category from the list on the left and then click one of the templates. Notice that there may be more choices to the right, so scroll over to see them.

Instantly, you have a beautiful message started. To replace the sample images, you can drag images from the Finder (your Desktop windows) or from iPhoto, but if your photos are already in iPhoto, the easiest way to get them into a message is using the Photo Browser.
Click the Photo Browser button in the top-right corner of the Mail window.
Drag photos from the Photo Browser onto the placeholder images in the message.
Click in the sample text to highlight it and then type your own.
Fill in the recipient(s) and you are ready to send!

Switching Between Open Programs

We spend many hours a day switching back and forth between the various windows and programs that are open on our computers. Here are some time-saving techniques for switching between open programs.

PC
In any version of Windows, press and hold the Alt key on the keyboard. While it is held, tap the Tab key once without releasing the Alt key. If done correctly, this brings up a row of icons representing each window that you have open, as shown below.

Alt-Tab

Repeatedly tap the Tab key to highlight the next program. If you go too far, hit Tab more times to cycle back around to the beginning or press Shift-Tab to go backwards, all the while keeping the Alt key held down. When you have highlighted the icon for the window you want, let go of the Alt key. Immediately, that window jumps to the foreground.

Mac
To switch between open applications, press and hold the Command key on the keyboard. While it is held, tap the Tab key once without releasing the Command key. If done correctly, this brings up a row of icons representing each application that you have open. Repeatedly tap the Tab key to highlight the next application. If you go too far, hit Tab more times to cycle back around to the beginning or press Shift-Tab to go backwards, all the while keeping the Command key held down. When you have highlighted the application you want, let go of the Command key. Immediately, that application jumps to the foreground.

There is also a keyboard shortcut to switch between windows within the same application. For example, if you have several email message windows open that you are composing in Mail, plus the main Mail window, you can press and hold the Command key and then tap the tilde key (~) to switch to the next window. Keep holding Command while you repeatedly tap the tilde key until the desired window comes to the front, then release the Command key.

Take Pictures of the Screen

There are times when it is useful to take a picture of your computer screen. It makes it easier to describe a problem or error message or to teach someone how to do something. There are some great software programs you can purchase to take screenshots; they go way beyond the basics. On the PC, I like Snag-It. On the Mac, Snapz Pro is my choice. However, for simple screenshots, you don't need any extra software. The steps are different between Mac and PC, so I will give them both here.

PC
1. To take a picture of the whole screen, just press the PrntScrn key, located in the upper-right portion of the keyboard. To capture just the active window, hold the Alt key while you press the PrntScrn key.
2. The image is now on the Clipboard, so you can paste it into Word, an email message or an image editor like Photoshop or Paint. I often paste it into Paint and then immediately go to the Edit menu and choose Copy To..., which lets me save a copy of the image.

Mac
1. To take a picture of the whole screen, press Command+Shift+3. To capture a portion of the screen, press Command+Shift+4 and then either:
-- drag a rectangular marquee to select any portion of the screen, or
-- hit the Space bar once. The pointer changes into a camera. Then with the mouse, click the screen element (window, icon, toolbar, etc), you want to take a picture of.
2. The new image file icon appears on your desktop, called Picture 1.png.

Photoshop Selection Tips

When using Photoshop's selection tools (marquees, lassos and magic wands) to select parts of an image, making a new selection normally deselects existing selections. However, you can hold certain keys to modify the selection tool's behavior:
Hold the Shift key to add to (enlarge) the existing selection
Hold the Option/Alt key to subtract from (whittle away at) the existing selection
Hold Shift and Option/Alt to select only the parts of the existing selection that overlap with the new selection (the intersection of old and new)

Filling a Formula Down in Excel

When you want to copy an Excel formula down to the bottom of a long list, you do not have to drag the Fill handle all the way down. Instead, just double-click the Fill handle and Excel will copy the formula down through the last row of the list. Note: there must be entries in an adjacent column in order for Excel to determine how far down to copy.

Excel Fill handle

Typing the Current Date Automatically

If you frequently type the current date into fields, cells, documents or slides, here are some keyboard shortcuts that will save you time by typing today's date for you.

Mac	PC
FileMaker: Command + Minus sign ( - ) Excel: Command + Minus sign ( - ) Word: Control + Shift + D PowerPoint: Control + Shift + D, followed by Return	FileMaker: Ctrl + Minus sign ( - ) Excel: Ctrl + Semicolon ( ; ) Word: Alt + Shift + D PowerPoint: Alt + Shift + D, followed by Enter

Moving Within Text One Word at a Time

When you use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move around within text in a Word document, email message, or just about anywhere, you do not have to move letter by letter. By holding down a certain key, you can make the arrow keys move one word at a time instead of only one letter at a time.

On the Mac, press and hold the Option key (some applications use the Command key instead) and then press the Right Arrow or Left Arrow key to move one word at a time forward or backward. On the PC, press and hold the Ctrl key and then press the Right Arrow or Left Arrow key.

Responding to Alert Message Box Choices

How many times a day do you have to respond to alert messages like "Do you want to save the changes?" You can usually trigger one of the responses by simply pressing the Enter or Return key on the keyboard. But what if that is not the button you want to push? Often, you can press a single letter on the keyboard to trigger that button instead. Here are some examples of message box choices and ways you can select the alternative button.

Yes / No / Cancel
Press the letter N if you want to trigger the No button.

Save / Don't Save / Cancel
On the PC, press the letter N to trigger the Don't Save button.
On the Mac, press the letter D (some applications use Command + D) if you want to trigger the Don't Save button.

Moving from record to record in FileMaker Pro

If you are a FileMaker Pro database user, this simple keyboard shortcut is a convenient time-saver. It uses the same keys on both PC and Mac; press and hold the Control key and then tap the Up Arrow key or the Down Arrow key to go to the previous or next record, respectively, when in Browse mode of a FileMaker Pro database. Try it out! If it is not working, make sure you are holding down the Control key and not the Apple/Command key. If it works but then stops, it is probably that you have reached the first or last record and cannot go any further.

The remarkable thing about this keyboard shortcut is that it is useful in FileMaker's other three modes, as well. For example, in Layout mode, it takes you to the previous or next layout, and in Preview mode, to the previous or next page.

Drag-Copying

If you need to make a copy of something, whether it is a document or folder on your Desktop, a sentence in a Word document, a field on a FileMaker layout or a graphic in Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc., simply hold down the Option key (on a Mac) or the Alt key (on a PC) as you drag the item with your mouse to the new location. Keep the key held down until after releasing the mouse. NOTE: some PC programs use the Ctrl key rather than the Alt key, but either way, it is much more efficient than Copy and Paste.