7 Ways You Can Customize Your Mac’s Keyboard Settings
Whether you’re a veteran Mac user or just recently switched from Windows, there’s always something new and exciting to learn about the Mac keyboard. The Mac keyboard offers many customization options, and taking full advantage of these features is key to increasing productivity and making your workflow smooth.
Apple’s butterfly keyboard isn’t the best, but with Mac’s keyboard customization settings, there are many ways you can improve it. Below, we’ll list seven ways to customize keyboard settings on your Mac.
1. Change Keyboard Shortcuts
Familiarizing yourself with Mac’s keyboard shortcutsis a great way to speed up your workflow. To use keyboard shortcuts, simply press a modifier key such asCaps LockorCommandand a regular key simultaneously.
Of course, this varies depending on the shortcut, but remember that they can be a combination of up to four keys. For example, when using Safari, you can pressCommand + Nto open a new tab. Or, you can pressOption + Shift + Command + Wto close all Safari windows.
You can see keyboard shortcuts in the menu bar, next to the menu items in the dropdown lists. Here’s how you can change macOS keyboard shortcuts:
2. Create Text Replacements
Text replacements or substitutions have been available in macOS for as long as we can remember. This customization option lets you replace a smaller text string with a larger one. It comes in handy when typing emails, articles, and more.
Here’s how it’s possible to create a text shortcut:
To use text shortcuts, type the Replace text and hit theSpacekey. macOS will automatically replace it with whatever word or phrase you set in settings.
3. Adjust Keyboard Backlight Settings
The keyboard backlight takes up your Mac’s battery, so it makes sense to turn it off when you don’t need it. Thankfully, you can adjust the backlight settings of your keyboard and have it automatically turn off after a certain amount of time.
Here’s what you need to do:
4. Use the Standard Function Keys
Mac keyboards have function keys with icons printed on them to illustrate what they do. You canremap your Mac’s function keys to do anything you want, and similar to keyboard shortcuts, they have functions specific to apps.
You can use the special features printed on the function keys without having to press the Fn key, but when you’re using keyboard shortcuts that require you to press a function key, you have to press the Fn button as well, sometimes bringing the key combination up to five keys.
you’re able to change this by enabling “standard function keys” in the settings. Standard function keys invert the function key behavior, so you have to press and hold the fn key when using the special features printed on the keys. This will also allow you to use a keyboard shortcut involving the function keys without pressing the Fn key.
Here’s how it’s possible to enable it:
5. Disable Auto-Capitalization
Auto-capitalization is valuable when you have to write formally frequently—for work emails and whatnot. But if you tend to use your Mac for personal conversations and want to sound more informal, you probably don’t need it all the time. You can easily turn it off in the settings.
6. Change the Language of Your Keyboard
Quickly changing the language for your keyboard with one press of a button is an incredibly handy feature if you write in different languages.
Here’s how you may add languages and switch between them by pressing a single button:
Now, it’s possible to easily change the language by pressing the Globe/Fn key. You can also change it by clicking on the keyboard icon in the menu bar and selecting the language from the dropdown list. You can lateradd additional languages to your Mac’s Dictionary appto look up words in different languages.
7. Change the Layout of Your Mac’s Keyboard
If you’re not used to typing on anANSI or ISO keyboard, you could change the layout in the keyboard settings.
Keyboard Tricks for Advanced Typing on Your Mac
As you can tell, there are tons of keyboard customization options on your Mac. From creating new keyboard shortcuts to changing the entire layout of your keyboard, there’s so much you can do to improve your typing experience.
you could create a keyboard shortcut for pretty much anything to make your workflow smoother. Play around with these settings and see what works best for you.
If you feel these built-in customization options aren’t enough, you can use third-party apps to get even more control over your Mac’s mouse and keyboard.
macOS gives you a few options to tweak your mouse and keyboard controls, but these apps let you customize them completely.
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