 Mac Text Navigation Keyboard ShortcutsPosted on July 14, 2006 by Grant SkinnerOn of my developers recently switched to a Mac, and was wondering how to move the insertion point to the beginning and end of a line on the Mac (OSX doesn’t support home/end keys in the same way as Windows). I thought with so many developers switching to Apple hardware, it would be useful to post a quick run-down on the awesome text shortcuts in OSX. This is hardly an exhaustive list, but these are the ones I use regularly (brackets describe behaviour for multiple presses):
These last two are not really shortcuts, but the lack of support for them drives me nuts in Windows:
It’s worth noting that text shortcuts are much more consistent in OS X than on Windows. Virtually every app supports the same shortcuts, including things like cmd-a for select all. I hate it in XP when I want to select all the text in a dialog so I hit ctrl-a and nothing happens. You only ever encounter this in bad ports or the odd java app on Mac. You might also want to check out Textpander, which is a great little utility that will automagically replace text shortcuts in any textfield with expanded text (or even images, etc) as you type. For example, I have it set to replace “uv\” with “public var “. Unfortunately it was purchased by another company who is overcharging for it imho ($29.99). If you hunt around a bit though, you can find a copy of the original free version. Here’s a list of other OSX shortcuts that could be useful.
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28 Comments
great post, also point out holding shift higlites which i use all the time..... i.e.
shift + alt + left ... highlites the word to the left
shift + alt + right .. highlites the word to the right
(my two favourite shortcuts of all time... mainly because they work on text in every app)
and up and down highlites the paragraph from cursor position etc..
Posted by: thatblokemike on Jul 14, 2006 11:19am URL: http://www.thatblokemike.com
Hey, cool, your tips came in at the right time!
Posted by: Brajeshwar on Jul 14, 2006 11:26am URL: http://www.brajeshwar.com/
Mike - already in the list: "shift with any of the above". Reorganized a bit to make it stand out. Definitely one of my favourites too - super useful for jumping through method params and editing them. :)
Posted by: Grant Skinner on Jul 14, 2006 11:32am URL: http://gskinner.com/
wow thats freaky, just yesterday i was thinking to myself if there was a way to jump to the next word instead of to the end of the line.
since you mentioned Textpander, i jsut wanted to bring up that textmate has support for that kind of stuff too (they call it Tab Trigger). I type 'getset'-tab and get getter/setter methods with the private var in place, and tab stops quickly fill out the necessary parts of the methods. its pretty awesome.
Posted by: flashape on Jul 14, 2006 11:42am URL: http://www.visible-form.com/blog
I'm right there with you, wishing I had as much keyboard-shortcut access on Windows as I do on Mac..... Some noteworthy OS X apps for which these shortcuts do not work:
Dreamweaver: Cmd-* and Opt-* behave the same (skip whole chunks at a time); must switch to HOME and END (Cmd-Home and Cmd-End to jump to beginning/end of the entire document).
Illustrator & Photoshop: Opt-right and Opt-left do not jump from word to word but adjust the kerning instead. Switch to Cmd-* and Home/End as with Dreamweaver.
Flash (input text for compiled SWFs): Cmd-* and Opt-* do not work, only Home and End are available (perhaps I am nitpicking here).
Posted by: Noah Dziobecki on Jul 14, 2006 4:22pm URL: http://www.dzignspace.com
When you discover these shortcuts, you definitely gain time, especially while coding or debugging. :)
Posted by: glorb on Jul 16, 2006 11:23pm URL: http://glorbox.com
Sweet. I knew stumbled on a couple of them my self. It's good to know all of them them now.!
Posted by: Jonathan Spooner on Jul 19, 2006 10:39am URL: http://www.jonathanspooner.com
Weird - I'm the other way round... Haven't "switched" and whenever I need to use someone's Mac for something I find myself getting really frustrated that "Home" and "End" and other text navigation shortcuts I'm used to don't work like I'm expecting... Hopefully this will help to ease the pain!
Posted by: Kelvin Luck on Jul 21, 2006 12:25pm URL: http://kelvinluck.com
Very useful - I was especially missing the goto start/end of line ones, coming from Windows.
Posted by: Edwin van Rijkom on Jul 30, 2006 1:39pm URL: http://www.vanrijkom.org
This is hilarious (and useful).
I just bought a MacBook and love every feature. But the home/end difference (and Control + Arrow Key) have been driving me nuts! Oh well. A small inconvenience to overcome...
Thanks for the guide!
Posted by: Kyle on Aug 13, 2006 3:56pm URL: http://kylefox.net
hello,
command + up to get to the beginning of the document doesn't work for me in Word for Mac. Does anybody know how to go to the beginning/end of a document in Word on a Mac.
thanks,
brett
Posted by: brett august on Aug 29, 2007 5:36am
Hi, Brett
I was wondering the same thing myself: how to get to the beginning and end of a document in Word for Mac...
My search brought me to this page. Then, when I was about to give up, I found it.
Try Function-Command-Home and Function-Command-End.
Woiks for me!
jwc
Posted by: jwc on Dec 12, 2007 4:03pm
How do I go to the end or the beginning of a document in Word for Mac on a Mac Book laptop? (There are no end or home keys.)
Posted by: jb on Feb 26, 2008 2:29pm
In MacBook, try
Fn + Cmd + right arrow (end) or left arrow (home)
Posted by: jhopkin on Apr 7, 2008 10:37am
Super! It works. Thanks.
Posted by: jb on Apr 8, 2008 4:23pm
As a longtime DOS and later Windows user I was dumbfounded at first as well. But I do have to say now adjusting to these hot-keys, they are more intuitive and make more sense for text editing..
Thanks for the guide.
Posted by: kibbled_bits on Jul 5, 2008 3:45pm
On iPages 08, for HOME button, you can try Cntrl + command + left arrow key, whereas for the END button, you have Cntrl + command + right arrow key.
If you are using TextEdit or other basic word processor, then you can use Control + Right button for END and Control + Left button for HOME.
Posted by: Samir on Aug 13, 2008 9:24pm
Does anyone know if you can change these shortcuts so that the command key acts in place of the option key? I really hate having to switch off.
Posted by: josh on Oct 7, 2008 2:43pm
Thanks, jhopkin, for the End and Home commands for the MacBook laptop. The instructions that say to hit "End" or "Home" when they don't exist were dumbfounding me. :)
Posted by: I-Cat on Nov 21, 2008 3:47pm
Thanks for the useful article.
I just switched to Mac from years of Windows. All of the shortcuts you mention are available on Windows and pretty consistently applied, IMO. The home/end keys move the cursor to the begin/end of a line, like PgUp/PgDown do for pages, and the shift key combo does selection with them. Home/End on Macs go to the beginning/end of the document --- how often does one do that in comparison to begin/end of line? Not a great design choice.
I just got a beautiful new 17" MacBook Pro, but the thing I really miss is the simplicity of text selection on Windows. On the Mac, I've got to press 3 keys instead of 2, and sadly things like GMail don't support command-shift-right/left selection.
Posted by: aneil on May 20, 2009 10:06am
Great info. I used Home/End all the time in Windows and still wish it was available in Mac.
In Windows, the Home takes you to the top (latest e-mail) of Outlook; and End all the way to the bottom. In Mac, I can't get to the top or bottom of Entourage that easily. At least, I have not found the key combo yet.
The other thing really irks me in Mac world is when I am using 'shift' to select multiple things in Finder. I start with Shift + DOWN several times then whoops that's too many, so I press UP to deselect the last item, but instead it expands the selection UPward from where I started, so now I have 2 items I don't want. This is very annoying, especially when selecting several hundred items and you can't see the bottom of your list until you have passed it, and need to deselect the last few. This does not happen for selecting text say in Word, or a webpage.
Posted by: Sam on Oct 12, 2009 8:53am
Thanks so much for information -- I was hoping there was a way and what a great implementation!
Posted by: Leonard on Nov 11, 2009 3:12pm
Life saver! Thanks so much!
Posted by: mihailogazda on Jun 3, 2010 11:05am
i can't get to the end of a document. none of the suggested
key commands work. i can get to the beginning with fn command up arrow, but the opposite does not get me to the end. any ideas
Posted by: STEVE mark on Aug 8, 2010 2:21pm
More consistent!!!!???? You have to be kidding! Every second app uses a different combination or supported shortcut keys, or supports some and not others, even within the same app you will at times go to enter a comment in a dialog and find that Home/End is no longer available.
This applies across the board, not just cursor movements, and also between Apple's own applications. Here's a good talk about Mac inconsistencies in general (including in their so called great design): http://daringfireball.net/2003/02/inconsistencies
If it was consistently applied across the operating system, ok then it might be better perhaps, but as it is using Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) feels like I'm at "Amateur Hour" :(
- One disillusioned Mac user
Posted by: Disillusioned Mac User on Sep 2, 2010 11:46pm
I'm having withdraw symptoms after leaving my dead PC laptop at the repair store this morning and using my Macbook Pro all day today. I miss my: 10 key pad, dedicated hw keys (Home, End, Pg Up, Pg Dn, etc).
The Mac appears to require simply more keystrokes to the get the same job done. Ugh.
Posted by: Daniel Payne on Sep 30, 2010 7:56pm URL: http://www.tualatinweb.com
Thanks
Posted by: Hisham on Jul 21, 2011 3:47am
cmd v - paste
Posted by: Daniel Huet on Nov 27, 2011 5:27pm