Save As...

Problem:  You tried to save a copy of a document using the "Save As..." menu command, but Apple removed that option when they introduced Lion (Mac OS X 10.7+). The command is missing in Mountain Lion (10.8) and Mavericks (10.9), as well.

Solution: Apple quietly added back that option in Mountain Lion (and it carried over to Mavericks). If you hold down the Option key and click on the File menu, the "Save As..." menu item will appear.

Taking Screenshots in Mac OS X

Problem: you would like to take a snapshot of all or part of what is being displayed on your Mac.

Solution:

To take a snapshot and save it to a file that will appear on your Mac's desktop...

Cmd+Shift+3...........................................Entire screen
Cmd+Shift+4...........................................Specified region of the screen

Cmd+Shift+4 and then space bar...................Specified window

To take a snapshot and place it in the copy buffer (use Cmd+v to paste it into an app)

Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+3...................................Entire screen

Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4...................................Specified region of the screen

Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 and then space bar...........Specified window

Creating a Form in Microsoft Word

Problem: You don't know how to create a user-fillable form in Microsoft Word for Mac OS X.

Solution: Just follow the instructions below...

1) Create a new document and open the Forms toolbar by

View > Toolbars > Forms

Figure 1. Forms toolbar

2) Layout your form by adding a combination of text and various form fields. The available form fields are text, checkbox, and pulldown.

To add a text form field to the form, left-click where you want the field to appear in the form and then click on the first item (i.e., ab|) in the Forms toolbar. Word will insert a text field at that location within the form.

Figure 2. Text form field

Similarly, you can add a checkbox to the form by selecting an insertion point and clicking on the second item in the toolbar.

Figure 3. Checkboxes

The third toolbar item adds a pulldown form field to the form. To enter the menu items, double click on the field and add the items using the dialog box.

Figure 4. Pulldown form field

3) After laying out the form, click on the right-most toolbar item (i.e., the lock icon). This will toggle between Protect and Unprotect Document modes. When the lock icon is highlighted, the document is protected, which prevents anyone from editing the document. In this mode, the user will be able to fill out the form but not edit it. You can optionally password-protect the form by selecting

Tools > Protect Document...

and select the "Forms:" option and set a password. To further edit the form, switch to Unprotect Document mode by clicking on the lock icon.

Manually Transferring a Numbers Spreadsheet from an iPad to a Mac

Problem: You want to manually transfer a Numbers spreadsheet from your iPad to your Mac.

Solution: Follow the instructions below.

From Apple's website...

1. In Spreadsheets view (with all spreadsheets closed), scroll until the spreadsheet you want to export is in the center of the screen, and then tap .
2. Tap “Send to iTunes,” and then tap the document format you want to export to: Numbers, PDF, or Excel.
3. Connect your iPad to your computer and open iTunes on your computer. After a moment, your iPad appears listed under Devices on the left side of the iTunes window.
4. In iTunes, select the name of your iPad, and then click Apps.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the Apps window, and then select Numbers in the Apps list under File Sharing.
6. Select the name of the spreadsheet you want to transfer to your computer and click “Save to.”
7. In the window that appears, navigate to the location where you want to store the spreadsheet, and then click Choose.

Apple's Confusing Modifier Key Icons

Problem: You would like to use a keyboard shortcut that appears in a Mac app's menu, but you don't recognize the modifier keys by their icon.

Solution: From Apple's website, here's a list of the modifier key icons...

 (Command key) - On some older Apple keyboards, this key also has an Apple logo
 (Control key)
 (Option key) - "Alt" may also appear on this key
 (Shift key)
 (Caps Lock) - Toggles Caps Lock on or off
 Fn (Function key)

Preventing Safari from Opening with Previously Opened Pages

Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) has a new feature that automatically loads web pages that were open when you last quit Safari. This can be useful in some situations, but it can also be very annoying at times.

To prevent Safari from starting up with the previously opened web pages, type the following in a window of the Terminal app...

defaults write com.apple.Safari ApplePersistenceIgnoreState YES

To turn the feature back on, type


defaults write com.apple.Safari ApplePersistenceIgnoreState NO