MacBook applications with tasks in common


Many of the applications included on your MacBook have tasks in common, such as finding application information, launching an application, or creating a new document. Once you familiarize yourself with these commands, you can perform them in a wide variety of programs.

Open a MacBook application

You can launch any of the applications on your MacBook by double-clicking the program icon in the Applications or Utilities folder. If the application is also located on the Dock, you can click the icon from there instead. If you aren’t sure where an application is located, open a new Finder window and type what you are looking for in the search box (or use Spotlight). The results will appear in the Results window.

Create a new document

There are a lot of programs in which you’ll need to create a new document to get started. These include word processing programs (TextEdit, Microsoft Word, OpenOffice.org Writer), graphics programs (Adobe Photoshop, GIMP), page layout programs (QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign), and many others. You can create a new document by selecting File > New. You can also use the keyboard shortcut COMMAND-N.

Open, close, and save documents

Also available from the File menu are the commands to Open, Close, and Save documents. Select Open and a new dialog box will appear so that you can browse to the document you want to open (the type of document depends on the program). You can close a document by selecting File > Close or by clicking the red × button in the upper-left corner of the window. To save your document, select File > Save (or try COMMAND-S). Name your document and choose a location to save it to. Click Save and you’re done!

If you want to save a copy of a document and not overwrite the original, you can use the Save As command. This allows you to rename the document and save it as a copy or, in some cases, as a different format. For example, you could open a .gif image file in Photoshop and use Save As to save it as a .jpg file. Or, you could open a Word document and save it as Plain Text (.txt extension). You will find the Save As command in the File menu below Save.

Print documents

While having digital documents has saved a lot of trees, occasionally it is necessary to print them out. You can easily print documents by opening the document that you want to print and clicking File > Print. This opens the Print dialog box. In the first box, you can select which printer you want to send your document to, in case you have more than one available on your network. Click the up-facing arrow next to the printer selection box to expand the dialog box and see more Print options.

With the expanded options, you can change the paper size and the page layout and set how many copies you would like to print. You can also opt to print the header and footer, collate your copies, or to print your file to PDF format (when applicable).

Resize windows

You can resize any of the windows on your MacBook by clicking and dragging the small arrow in the lower-right corner of the window. If you want to fully open the window, click the green + sign in the upper-left corner. Your MacBook will determine the best size of the window based on its contents. You can manually resize it from there if you want it bigger. You can click the yellow – symbol to minimize the window to the Dock.

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