This is the thing about Apple’s devices, you think you know everything about them, but you never do. You must have been using Mac for years now, but there are still some amazing features which you may have forgotten or don’t even know about. For example, did you know you can type with your voice on Mac? Yes, there is a voice detection feature in your Mac which you were totally oblivious about.
There are still many such features you can know and enhance your Mac experience. Read through these 10 most amazing features to learn what you can do with your Mac.
1. Type an Apple Icon
You can create an Apple icon using the built-in shortcuts. Just hold down Option + Shift + K on any apple computer and you will get the Apple icon.
2. Let the Mac Read it Aloud For You
Well, if you are in no mood of reading the whole document by yourself, then just let your Mac do it for you. An accessibility feature in Mac OS X allows text to be read out aloud by the computer. This gives you a choice to lay back and have the document read by your Mac.
All you have to do is highlight the section of text, go to the Edit option at the top of the page, select speech and then start speaking. It’s that simple.
You even have a choice of changing voice of the narrator if you don’t like it. You can change it by going into System Preferences > Dictation and Speech. You can choose any of the several options available here.
3. Hide it in a Flash
It’s like going on stealth mode in a second. No one can ever know what you were doing a second ago on your Mac. This will really be helpful for the people who look things on their work machine which they probably should not.
You can hide the recent window by pressing Command + H. Whatever you are looking at will be instantly hidden at the dock. And if you want to hide all the windows at once, press Command + M to minimize everything.
Speaking about hiding things, you can even hide your dock just by pressing Command + Option + D. Interesting, right?
4. Sign on a PDF File with Pen, Paper and Webcam
Are you struggling to put your signature on online forms or PDF files? With a very handy feature of Preview, you can sign on the digital documents even when you don’t have a digital signature.
Just sign on a plain white paper and put it in front of your webcam. The Mac will automatically turn your signature into a digital copy that can be used on all soft copies.
5. Take the Benefit of Quick Tab Management
A very easy way to get rid of too many running applications is using the Quick Tab Management bar. Simply hold Command + Tab and the Bar appears. To toggle through the bar, hold Command and press ‘Tab’ to browse through the apps. As soon as you reach the app(s) you want to close or hide, press “Q” to quit or “H” to hide the apps.
6. Preview the File
You can easily preview any type of file by selecting it and pressing the spacebar. Press it again to close the review or while in the preview you can use the arrow buttons to scroll through the files. This function also works with some video formats which allow you to have a quick preview.
7. Do Faster Calculations
If you press Command + Spacebar, Apple’s spotlight search comes up and lets you search anything on your computer. What if I tell you that you can just do the calculation in spotlight search? Yes, it has the ability to do basic math for you. This will definitely save your time and get you the results faster.
8. Save Your Battery
You can conserve enough battery charge by seeing what applications are hogging the most power. To see these, click on the battery icon at the top of the page followed by Apps Using Significant Energy and you will see the apps listed.
9. Quickly summarize text
There is a feature which allows you to quickly summarize long pieces of text in just a few seconds. In order to summarize text, first select it, right-click the selection and click on “Summarize”.
10. Screenshots at Your Choice
There is no need to take screenshots of the entire screen anymore when you only need a particular section of the screen. Use Command + Shift + 4 for turning the cursor into a cross. Then select the required part of the screen you need and press spacebar to capture the screenshot.
As we see, there are many hidden features of Mac and I believe this list can be added to some more amazing features. What are your favorite Mac features? Please share with us in the comment section below.
