Command turns letters into actions

Pressing Command will not give you more command over your life. Your Mac is another matter.

⌘

First, the symbol

This symbol means the Command key. There is one on each side of the space bar, most keyboards print ⌘ on it, and some people say Cmd. Every shortcut in this course starts with it.

⌘C⌘V⌘X⌘Z⌘S⌘A⌘F⌘P

On its own it does nothing at all. Held down with a letter, that letter stops typing and starts doing: copy, paste, undo, save, select all, find, print. Learn this one key and a hundred shortcuts come free, because they work the same way in every app.

Do this now

Open Notes (or any app you can type in) and type a short sentence. Press Command and A together to select it. Then Command and C to copy. Click at the end of the line and press Command and V.

You will know it worked when

Your sentence now appears twice. Press Command and Z and the second copy disappears again.

▶ Nothing happened?

Check you are pressing Command, the wide key immediately to the left of the space bar, marked with a loop symbol. Control is a different key on a Mac and will not copy anything.

I did it, continue

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