2018-07-01 BDMs MacOS User Guides [PDF]

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Mac Manual The Complete

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BDM’s Manual Series BDM’s

Mac Manual The Complete

Your indispensable guide to your Mac and its apps Are you getting the most from your Mac, its apps and its operating system, macOS 10.13: High Sierra? Are you using it to its fullest or are some of its features and functions a mystery to you? Whichever Mac you own and use, The Complete Mac Manual is the perfect companion. If you’re thinking of upgrading, or even buying your first Mac, our hardware guide will help you choose. For beginners, we show you how to set up your Mac out of the box, take it onto the Internet and use its basic features such as Finder, Desktop and the Dock. Our guides to the Mac’s bundled apps are for novices and experienced users alike; check them out, you might find something you’ve overlooked. Our expert guides also show you how to use macOS’ more complex Ian Osborne Editor features as well as guiding you through some more advanced projects. Email: [email protected] It’s all in The Complete Mac Manual.

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BDM’s The Complete Mac Manual ISBN 978-1-907306-34-1

Published by: �������������������������������������������Papercut Limited Editorial Director: �������������������������������������James Gale Art Director & Production: �����������������������Mark Ayshford Production Manager: �������������������������������Karl Linstead Editor: �����������������������������������������������������Ian Osborne Design: ���������������������������������������������������Martin Smith Artwork & Layout: �����������������������������������Robin Drew Editorial: ���������������������������������������������������Ian Osborne, Russ Ware Sub Editor: �����������������������������������������������Paul Beard Digital distribution by: �����������������������������Pocketmags.com, Apple App Store & Google Play

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Copyright ©2018 Papercut Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system or integrated into any other publication, database or commercial programs without the express written permission of the publisher. Under no circumstances should this publication and its contents be resold, loaned out or used in any form by way of trade without the publisher’s written permission. While we pride ourselves on the quality of the information we provide, Papercut Limited reserves the right not to be held responsible for any mistakes or inaccuracies found within the text of this publication. Due to the nature of the software industry, the publisher cannot guarantee that all apps will work on every version of the iPad. It remains the purchaser’s sole responsibility to determine the suitability of this book and its content for whatever purpose. App images reproduced on the front and back cover are solely for design purposes and are not representative of content. We advise all potential buyers to check listing prior to purchase for confirmation of actual content. All editorial opinion herein is that of the reviewer - as an individual - and is not representative of the publisher or any of its affiliates. Therefore the publisher holds no responsibility in regard to editorial opinion and content.

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BDM’s - The Complete Mac Manual is an independent publication and as such does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the producers of Apps or products contained within. This publication is not endorsed or associated in any way with Apple or any associate or affiliate company. All copyrights, trademarks and registered trademarks for the respective companies are acknowledged. Editorial and design are the copyright © Papercut Limited. Relevant graphic imagery reproduced with courtesy of Apple. Mac is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the US and other countries. Mac ©2018 Apple Inc. Additional images contained within this publication are reproduced under licence from shutterstock. com and iStockphoto.com. App Store prices, international availability, ratings, titles and content are subject to change. All information was correct at time of print. Some content may have been previously published in other volumes or titles. For all advertising and promotional opportunities please contact: [email protected] Papercut Limited Registered in England & Wales No: 4308513 INTERNATIONAL LICENSING Papercut Limited has many great publications and all are available for licensing worldwide. For more information go to: www.brucesawfordlicensing.com; email: [email protected] telephone: 0044 7831 567372

Contents The Complete Mac Manual 6 An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS 8 14 18 20 22 24 26 30 32 38 40 42 44

The Current Mac Range – Desktops & Notebooks Set Up Your Mac – For the First Time Upgrading Your Mac – To macOS High Sierra Launching Applications – And Quitting Them Too Get on the Internet – With Wi-Fi or Ethernet Gesture Controls – On Your Mac’s Trackpad The Mac’s Desktop – And How to Use it The Mac’s Menus – And How to Use Them Using the Finder – On Your Mac The Mac’s Dock – And How to Use it Notification Center – How to Get More From it The Spotlight Feature – Making the Most of it Set Up Email Accounts – On Your Apple Mac

46 Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac 48 56 60 66 67 68 70 74 76 78 82 84 86 90 92 96 100 102

The Safari App – Your Web Browser The Mail App – Your Mac’s Email Client The Photos App – Manage and Edit Pics Importing Images – From a Third-party Exporting Photos – From the Photos App QuickTime Player App – For Playing & Recording The iTunes App – For Your Digital Music Apple Music – The Streaming Service The Contacts App – For All Contact Details The Calendar App – For Planning Events The Reminders App – Never Forget Again The Messages App – For On-screen Chats The iBooks App – Buy and Read eBooks The FaceTime App – Video Calls on a Mac The Notes App – To Store Your Jottings The Maps App – For Directions and More The Preview App – View Images and More The App Store App – To Buy Mac Software

104 How to Get More From Your Mac 106 114 120 126 127 128 130 132 134 136 4 | BDM’s – The Complete Mac Manual

Top Tips – For Your Mac System Preferences – And How to Use Them The iCloud Service – For Cloud Computing iCloud Desktop – Documents & Folders Mission Control – Manage Your Desktop Using Extensions – On a Web Browser Split View Screens – And What They Do External Optical Drives – And the DVD Player App New User Accounts – How to Use Them Automator Assistant – And How it Works

Contents

An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS We look at Apple’s desktop and notebook Macs and show you how to set up your new Apple computer and use its basic features.

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Closed Clamshell Mode – On Your Mac Notebook The Sharing Options – A Regular Mac Feature Home Sharing – From Your Mac Family Sharing – With Your Apple Devices The Handoff Feature – For macOS and iOS The Continuity Feature – For macOS and iOS Universal Clipboard – For macOS and iOS Using Time Machine – To Back Up and Restore Multi-use Touch Bar – On Your MacBook Pro The Siri Feature – The Mac’s Digital PA Auto Save Feature – On Your Mac The App Switcher – Speeds Your Workflow Picture in Picture – A Space Saving Feature

164 Advanced Projects for Your Mac 166 170 172 174 176 177

Running Non-Apple Operating Systems Adding a Second Screen to Your Mac Adding Joypads and Controllers Accessibility – For Those Impaired Formatting Drives – Using Disk Utility The Keyboard – Customised Shortcuts

178 Taking Care of Your Mac 180 182 184 186 190 192

Extending Your Notebook’s Battery Life Rescuing Deleted Files on Your Mac Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Maintenance and Troubleshooting Keyboard Shortcuts Glossary of Mac and Computing Terms

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac There’s more to the Mac’s built-in applications (or apps) than you may think. We show you how to use them, including their advanced features.

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How to Get More From Your Mac When you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to take things further. We look at some of the Mac’s high-end features and functions.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac When you’re ready to try something new, we show you some great advanced projects that you can do with your Mac.

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Taking Care of Your Mac If something goes wrong, we show you how to put it right and also give you tips on keeping your Mac running smoothly.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

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ere we bring you a guide to the Mac’s hardware and show you how to set it up from scratch. We also take you through the Mac’s basic functions,

such as the Dock, Finder, Notification Centre and more. We also show you how to take your Mac online.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Contents 8 The Current Mac Range – Desktops & Notebooks

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Desktop Computing Range



10 Notebook Range



12 Pro Desktop

14 Set Up Your Mac – For the First Time

17 Reset to Factory Conditions

18 Upgrading Your Mac – To macOS High Sierra

18 Minimum Requirements for High Sierra

20 Launching Applications – And Quitting Them Too

21 Quitting Apps

22 Get on the Internet – With Wi-Fi or Ethernet

23 Configuring Your Wi-Fi



23 Going Online with Ethernet

24 Gesture Controls – On Your Mac’s Trackpad

25 Force Click

26 The Mac’s Desktop – And How to Use it

28 Choose New Wallpaper



29 Automatically Change the Desktop Wallpaper

30 The Mac’s Menus – And How to Use Them

31 Right-Clicking and CTRL-Clicking

32 Using the Finder – On Your Mac

33 How to Relaunch Finder



35 Perform Tasks Within the Finder



35 File Sharing Using the macOS High Sierra Finder



36 Full-screen Mode

38 The Mac’s Dock – And How to Use it 40 Notification Center – How to Get More From it

41 Notification Center Settings

42 The Spotlight Feature – Making the Most of it 44 Set Up Email Accounts – On Your Apple Mac

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The Current Mac Range Desktops and Notebooks Desktop or notebook? Portability or power? Big screen or external monitor? Buying your first Mac can be bewildering but we’re here to help. We bring you a guide to the current Mac models, their strengths and weaknesses and an outline of their expansion options. With our assistance, you can find the right Mac model for you. Desktop Computing Range

Mac mini

Apple’s small form factor computer is the cheapest way to own a Mac. But is it the right model for you?

If you’re on a budget, the Mac mini has a lot to offer. It’s inexpensive as Macs go, and offers enough power for most users, but it comes without a display, keyboard or a mouse – you have to supply these yourself. But if you want to use the same Mac at home and in the office, you could set up your monitor and input devices in each, and only carry the Mac mini itself around in your work bag.

Suitability. Those on a budget or who are pressed for space. Also, if you already have a monitor, keyboard and controller, the Mac mini is all you need.

Price.

Most expensive*: £949, $999, 1.129 € Cheapest model*: £479, $499, 569 €

Ports. 1 2 3 4

Power Socket Ethernet port HDMI port Two Thunderbolt 2 ports

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Four USB 3 ports

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SDXC card reader slot Audio in port Headphone socket

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The Current Mac Range

Desktop Computing Range

iMac

Apple’s popular desktop Mac goes from strength to strength. It’s a computer and a monitor, all in one unit. It’s the perfect Mac for the home too. The iMac is ideal for home or home office use. With the computer, hard drive and screen all in one unit, you only have one thing to plug in. Available in 21-inch or 27-inch versions, all but the cheapest iMac have amazing 4K or 5K displays, for incredible clarity. The iMac’s only drawback is it’s definitely not suitable if you need to transport it from A to B regularly, but apart from that, it’s great.

Suitability. The iMac is ideal for the home and small office user. Unless you need an incredibly powerful computer, there’s bound to be an iMac that’s ideal for your requirements.

Ports. 1 2 3

4 5 6

Headphone socket SDXC card reader slot Four USB 3 ports

Two USB C ports Ethernet port Power socket

Price.

Most expensive*: £2,249, $2,299, 2.599 € Cheapest model*: £1,049, $1,099, 1.299 €

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Notebook Range

MacBook Pro

The most powerful Mac in Apple’s notebook range. The MacBook Pro is Apple’s high-end notebook model. Although higher priced than the MacBook and MacBook Air, it packs more processing power. It’s available in 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, and the higher end models include the new TouchBar shown here.

Suitability. Users who need a powerful, yet portable, Mac. Larger memory capability. The MacBook Pro is fast enough for most graphics, video and music software.

Price.

Most expensive*: £2,699, $2,799, 3.299 € Cheapest model*: £1,249, $1,299, 1.499 €

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Ports. 1 2

Four USB C ports* Headphone socket

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* The cheaper 13-inch MacBook Pro models have only two USB C ports

The Current Mac Range

Notebook Range

MacBook

It’s a great looking machine but is Apple’s latest notebook the right Mac for you? On a power-to-price ratio, Apple’s MacBook range is a weak performer. But you can’t fault it for style. Available in a range of colours, this slimline 12-inch notebook is the last word in fashion. It has a great new battery design that keeps it going all day too and comes in a choice of three colours.

Suitability. The MacBook isn’t the most powerful Mac on the market, but it’s incredibly stylish and portable. It’s great for those on the move.

Price.

Most expensive*:

Ports. 1 2 3

£1,249, $1,599, 1.799 € Cheapest model*: £1,549, $1,299, 1.499 €

USB C port Dual mics

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Headphone socket

Notebook Range

MacBook Air

This is the notebook computer that started a trend for slim and very portable laptops. Let’s look at the latest release of Apple’s groundbreaking MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is the original thin, ultra-portable notebook. Although when it first arrived it lacked power, successive releases brought improvements, until it’s now a very capable machine. Ideal for students, and those who need to carry it around all day.

Suitability. All-day battery life and lightweight portability. A great choice for those who carry their notebook around a lot.

Price. Most expensive*: £1,099, $1,199, 1.349 € Cheapest model*: £949, $999, 1.099 €

Ports. 1 2 3 4 5 6

MagSafe 2 power socket Two USB 3 ports Headphone socket Dual mics SDXC card reader slot Thunderbolt 2 port

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Pro Desktop

iMac Pro

Apple’s latest Mac is the most powerful ever built. The iMac Pro is the same size and shape as the regular 27-inch iMac but under the hood it’s a very different beast. It’s powered by Xeon processors with up to 18 cores and also boasts a Radeon Pro Vega graphics processor. It’s the most powerful Mac ever built, by some considerable margin. However, all that power does comes at a price. Even the lowest cost iMac Pro is very expensive, so unless you really need a lot of processing power, it’s probably not the Mac for you.

Suitability. The amazing power offered by the iMac Pro makes it ideal for video editors, 3D artists, graphics renderers and music studios. It’s not cheap, but you’re getting a lot of Mac for your money.

Price.

Ports. 1 2 3

4 5 6

Headphone socket SDXC card reader slot Four USB 3 ports

Two USB C ports Ethernet port Power socket

Most expensive*: £12,279.00, $13,199.00, 15,339.00 € Cheapest model*: £4,899.00, $4,999.00, 5,499.00 €

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The Current Mac Range

Pro Desktop

Mac Pro

Apple’s original ‘power-user’ desktop model got a radical redesign a few years ago but has been lying low ever since. The Mac Pro was re-designed to be a more compact, extremely configurable and powerful machine that would satisfy the demands of professional designers, video editors and 3D artists and anyone that needed a very fast mac. At just 25cm x 16.7cm and weighing 5kg this small machine packs a huge punch. Up to 3.0ghz 8-core processing and memory configurable up to 64gb with the ability to support up to three 5K monitors or up to 6 thunderbolt displays. It has dual Dual AMD FirePro graphics processors, which can be upgraded.

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Suitability. The current version of the Mac Pro hasn’t been updated for a while, but it’s still good for the pro user.

Price.

Most expensive*: Cheapest model*:

£2,249, $2,299, 2.599 € £1,049, $1,099, 1.299 €

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Ports. 1 2 3 4

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External Speakers socket Headphone socket Four USB 3 ports Six Thunderbolt 2 ports

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Two Ethernet ports HDMI port Power socket * All Prices correct at the time of print.

Accessories.

Magic Trackpad 2 £149, $129, 169 €

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USB SuperDrive £79, $79, 89 €

HomePod £319, $349, TBA €

AirPort Express £99, $99, 109 €

AirPort Extreme £199, $199, 219 €

Your Ports Explained. Now you know what the ports on your Mac are called but what do they do? Here’s a guide to your computer’s various connectivity options. Audio In: You can use this port to connect an external audio device to your Mac. This might be an external microphone, a CD player, audio mixer or a musical instrument.

Headphone Socket: This is a standard 3.5mm socket for connecting headphones to your Mac. Alternatively, connect external speakers that use a 3.5mm jack.

Power Socket: Obviously, desktop Macs have no internal batteries so have to be connected to the mains. The iMac uses a kettle lead, the Mac mini a figureof-eight cable.

USB 3: USB 3 ports are ideal for devices such as printers and hard drives. They’re backwards compatible, so if your device is USB 2, you can still use it in a USB 3 port.

Dual Mics: The Mac’s internal microphones are great for FaceTime calls, Siri and more. Dual mics help reduce background noise by focussing on your voice alone.

HDMI port: This port is used to connect your Mac mini to a monitor or TV, using a HDMI cable. This connection carries both the sound and video feeds.

SDXC Card Reader: If your Mac has an SDXC card reader, you can plug an SD card, or a MicroSD card with an adapter, into it directly. It’s great for transferring photos to your Mac.

USB C (aka Thunderbolt 3): The most recent Mac notebooks use USB C (also called Thunderbolt 3) exclusively, even for charging. If you have non-USB C peripherals, you need an adapter or dock.

Ethernet Port: All current Macs have built-in Wi-Fi but if you want to use a cabled connection to your router instead, use the Ethernet port and an Ethernet cable.

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MagSafe: This is your MacBook Air’s charging port. Connect your power adapter to charge it. You can also find MagSafe charging ports on older MacBook Pros.

Thunderbolt 2: Thunderbolt 2 is a fast, versatile connectivity port you can use to connect all sorts of peripherals. You can even use it as a video-out port for an external display.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Set Up Your Mac For the First Time Setting up your new desktop or notebook Mac for the first time can be a daunting experience but it’s nothing to be afraid of. In this section we take you through the initial set up process, from switching it on and setting up or logging in with your Apple ID, all the way to having it ready to use. Your Mac adventures start here!

Setting Up Your New Mac

First choose the language your Mac is to use. Scroll up and down the list until you find the one you want, click on it to highlight it and then either press the Return key on the keyboard or click on the arrow icon at the foot of the screen to continue.

Your next step is to choose your territory. If your country of residence isn’t displayed in the list (which you can scroll up and down), tick the box labelled Show All and every available territory is shown; again, click to highlight your choice and move on.

Now select your keyboard layout. This is very straightforward. The layouts on offer are decided by your choice of language and territory but again, you can click Show All to reveal a wider range of options. Choose your layout and proceed once more.

Now choose your Wi-Fi network. Scroll up and down the list until you find your router’s SSID (service set identifier) and click on it. Enter the password in the field provided and move on. The router’s SSID and its password should be supplied with the router.

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Set Up Your Mac

You’re invited to transfer information from a Mac or Time Machine backup, a Windows PC or not at all. To transfer data from your old computer, choose the correct option and follow the on screen instructions. Otherwise, choose the last option to start afresh.

Next you’re asked whether you want to enable location services. Do so and your Mac identifies whereabouts in the world it’s located, which is very useful for applications such as Maps. Click the box if you wish to enable these services.

Now it’s time to sign in with your Apple ID. If you already have an Apple ID, sign in now with your password. If you don’t, click the Create New Apple ID link and follow the on-screen instructions. There’s also a link for if you’ve forgotten your Apple ID.

If you already have an Apple device, a six-figure identification number is sent, which you must type now. If it doesn’t arrive for any reason, click the link under the number fields and follow the instructions. Otherwise, type the numbers and proceed.

You’re shown a screen of Terms and Conditions, which you can read by clicking More under each entry if you wish. When you’re ready, click the right-pointing arrow at the foot of the screen to agree. Then click the Agree button on the pop-up screen.

Your account name is based on your Apple ID name but your password, which unlocks the computer, should be chosen now. Choose something you can remember and enter a hint in case you forget. We recommend you agree to both the checkbox options.

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When your iCloud account has been set up, you might see this screen, which means you already have an iOS device logged into the same Apple ID. If this is the case, enter the code you use on your mobile device’s lock screen to continue.

Choose whether you want to enable iCloud Keychain, a service which lets you store your passwords and login details and automatically add them where necessary. This data is stored across all your Apple devices which are logged into the same iCloud account.

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Choose whether to secure your disk with File Vault Encryption. If you change your mind later, you can go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy, and click on the File Vault tab. You can change your File Vault preferences from there.

If you accept the option to store all your files in your iCloud service, documents and data on your Mac’s desktop and in your Documents folder are synced across all the Apple devices logged into the same Apple ID. This is convenient but takes up storage space.

This step is straightforward. Choose whether to share analytic data with Apple and also with third-party developers. This data is sent privately, with no personal information attached. It’s up to you whether you allow it to be sent; make a choice and proceed.

Siri, Apple’s personal digital assistant for iOS, is now available on the Mac. If you wish to use it on your computer, check the Enable Siri on this Mac box and then press Continue. We show you what Siri can do later in this book.

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Set Up Your Mac

Reset to Factory Conditions. If you acquired your Mac second hand, you might want to wipe it clean and start again. Just follow this guide.

If you’re using a MacBook Pro, you’re invited to register a fingerprint with Touch ID. This is used for unlocking your Mac and for making purchases with Apple Pay. Follow the on-screen instructions to register for Touch ID or click the link to set it up later.

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If you already have credit or debit cards registered with Apple Pay, you can add them on your Mac by typing their security code where instructed. If you haven’t or if you want to register a different card, you can do this now, or set up Apple Pay later.

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You then see this screen, as your choices are used to set up the Mac. It doesn’t take long and when it’s finished, your Mac is ready for you to use. Congratulations, you’ve finished the setup procedure and your Mac is up and running.

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First, restart your Mac whilst holding down CMD and R; keep them held until you see the Apple logo. A window appears, titled ‘macOS Utilities’. Select Disk Utility and click Continue. Select your startup disk (called Macintosh HD by default) and click Erase.

On the next screen, the Format pull-down menu should read APFS if it’s available or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if it isn’t. Select the appropriate option and click Erase to wipe your boot drive. When it’s finished, click Done, then quit Disk Utility (CMD-Q).

Back in the window from Step 1, choose Reinstall macOS and click Continue. Click Continue to set up an installation of macOS. Agree to the terms and conditions, select your main drive and click Install. When done, your Mac is ready to be set up from new again.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Upgrading Your Mac To macOS High Sierra If your Mac is running an older version of the operating system, you’re probably keen to upgrade to the latest release of macOS, High Sierra. Fortunately, Apple has made this very easy to do. As long as your Mac meets the minimum system requirements, you can upgrade over the Internet, and it’s free too. Here’s how to go about it.

First of all, open the App Store and find the High Sierra operating system. Do a search if it’s not immediately visible on the front page. Click on macOS High Sierra to get to the download page.

When you get to the High Sierra download page, you can read all about the new OS. When you’re ready, click on Download. It may take some time if you have a slow Internet connection.

Minimum Requirements.

Make a Backup.

Before you start, you should make sure your Mac is powerful and recent enough to run macOS 10.13: High Sierra.

It’s always a good idea to keep a backup of your important files, so make sure yours is up to date. Here’s how to do it.

The system requirements for High Sierra are the same as those for its predecessor, Sierra. To upgrade to High Sierra, your Mac must have at least 2GB of memory, 8GB of free storage space and be running OS X 10.7 Lion or later. It must also be one of the following models. To check, go to the Apple menu and select About This Mac.

Upgrading the operating system is a big step, so as always, before making any major change to your computer, it’s a good idea to make a backup of your data. The upgrade is a very safe process and won’t damage your files by itself but there’s always the unexpected risk of a drive failure or power cut during the installation process, which could leave your Mac crippled. Better safe than sorry!

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iMac MacBook MacBook Pro MacBook Air Mac mini Mac Pro

Late 2009 or newer Late 2009 or newer Mid 2010 or newer Mid 2011 or newer Mid 2011 or newer Mid 2010 or newer

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Upgrading Your Mac

When the installer is fully downloaded, it automatically launches with this screen. Click Continue if you’re ready to install and if not, quit it and install from the Applications folder later.

Next step is terms and conditions. You have to click on Agree to continue. If you don’t have time to read them, there’s a copy available in About This Mac after the installation.

Next choose the hard drive you want to install High Sierra on. It will probably be your Mac’s own hard drive but you can install it on an external drive if you wish. Click Install to continue.

After entering your admin password, High Sierra begins the first stage of its installation. All you can do now is wait. Make sure you don’t turn off or unplug your Mac during the process.

When the installation is complete, you see a window asking you to close down all other apps. Click on this option and your Mac restarts, continuing the installation of macOS High Sierra.

It takes a while but eventually your Mac reboots into macOS High Sierra. You might have to sign into iCloud and accept more terms and conditions but after that, you’re up and running.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Launching Applications And Quitting Them Too There are several ways of launching an app on your Mac. You can: use the Launchpad, which is found in the Dock; you can open a Finder window and navigate your way to the application you wish to use; or you can click on the Spotlight feature and simply type its name. Here’s how to make use of all these methods.

Using Launchpad

To open the Launchpad, go to the Dock and click on it, or place four fingers on your trackpad and bring them together. The screen darkens and your apps are shown as icons. To launch an app from this screen, click on it. To close Launchpad, press Esc or click on the desktop.

If you have more than one page of apps, move between them by swiping left and right with two fingers or hold CMD and use the arrow keys. Click and hold on an app and an ‘X’ appears; you can then delete the app by clicking its ‘X’ or drag it around the screen to reorder.

You can arrange your apps into folders on Launchpad too, just like on an iOS Home screen. Just drag one app onto another and a folder is created. You can click on the name if you wish to change it and to remove an app from that folder, drag it off the grey folder area.

Open and close folders by clicking on and off the folder icon on the Launchpad screen. You can add new apps into the folder by simply dragging them onto the folder. You can also drag apps around the Launchpad window to change the order in which they’re arranged.

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Launching Applications

Using Spotlight

To launch an app using the Spotlight feature, first click on the magnifying glass found in the top right corner of the screen. A window saying ‘Spotlight Search’ pops up. If it’s inconveniently located, you can drag it around the desktop and move it to wherever you like.

Begin to type the name of the app you want to launch and Spotlight tries to complete it for you. When you see the name of the app, press Enter and it launches. To close the Spotlight search window without launching anything, just click anywhere on the screen.

Using the Finder

Using the Dock

You can also launch an app using the Finder. Open a new Finder window (or use one that’s already open) and click on Applications in the sidebar. All of your Mac’s apps are shown. Find the one you want to use and then double click on it to launch.

You can launch an app from the Dock. If your Dock is hidden, move your pointer to the foot of the screen to reveal it and click on the app you wish to use. To find out more about the Dock and how to customise it with your favourite apps, see our tutorial later in the book.

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Quitting Apps.

There are a number of ways you can close an app. Open apps are always shown in the Dock. Click using the right-hand side of a Magic Mouse or trackpad (right-click) or hold the Control key and click anywhere (CTRL-click) and then on Quit in the pop-up window.

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Alternatively, with the app to the fore in Finder, click on its name in the top left corner and select Quit [app name] from the menu; or hold the Command key and press ‘Q’. Just make sure the app is open on your desktop or you might quit the wrong application.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Get on the Internet With Wi-Fi or Ethernet The Internet is probably one of the main reasons you bought your Mac. When you’re online with your notebook or desktop Mac, you can surf the web, send and receive emails, make Internet telephone and video calls, buy apps and media and more. Here’s a guide to getting online using the Mac’s Wi-Fi connectivity.

Going Online with Your Mac

Make sure your Mac is within range of your wireless router. Click on the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar as shown, and look at the list of available Wi-Fi networks. If Wi-Fi is currently turned off, switch it on using this same icon.

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Find the name of your own Wi-Fi network. If you don’t know it, check your router’s instruction manual, or maybe look for a sticker on the router itself. Choose that network, and if prompted, enter the password. This too should be in the router manual or on the router.

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Using Public Wi-Fi.

Click on Remember this Network, so you don’t have to enter your Wi-Fi password again. Your Mac logs on to the network and the Wi-Fi icon shows it’s made a connection. If the icon is only partly darkened, your signal strength is weak, so move your Mac nearer the router.

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Some high street locations such as libraries, bars and restaurants offer free Wi-Fi to their customers. There are many different ways you can access public Wi-Fi. Some locations may have an unsecured connection, some require you to ask for their Wi-Fi password, and for others you have to register via their pop-up website; just open Safari while in such a Wi-Fi zone and then follow the on-screen instructions that appear when your Mac connects to the network.

Get on the Internet

Configuring Your Wi-Fi

Going Online with Ethernet. If you prefer the stability and speed offered by a cabled, Ethernet connection, here’s how to set this up on your Mac.

Open System Preferences from the Apple menu in the top left corner of the screen or from the Dock and click on the Network preference pane. Press the Advanced button and make sure the Wi-Fi tab is open, from the list across the top of the window.

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You can see a list of all the Wi-Fi networks your Mac has connected to, in order of preference; where two networks are available, the higher one is used. If you want to change this order, simply drag and drop them.

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To remove a network from this list, click on it and click on the minus button below the list. On this window, you can also make the Mac ask for admin authorisation for network tasks, using the checkboxes at the bottom.

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Once you’ve set up your router according to the instructions supplied with the device, getting online using Ethernet is relatively easy. First of all, you need a cable that looks like this. There should be at least one supplied with your router.

Plug one end of the cable into your Mac and the other end into one of the router’s Ethernet ports: it doesn’t matter which one. If your Mac doesn’t have an Ethernet port, you need an adapter. You can get one online or from an Apple Store. If your router isn’t close enough to your Mac to support a cabled connection, consider using Home Plug AV instead. This uses your household electrical wiring to send data. Ask at your local computer store about a Home Plug AV starter kit. There are many different brands of HomePlug AV devices to choose from, and as HomePlug AV is an industry standard, they’re all compatible with each other.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Gesture Controls On Your Mac’s Trackpad Something we really like about the Mac is the way you can navigate using gesture controls, just like you do on your phone. These gesture controls can be performed on a Mac notebook’s trackpad or on the Apple Magic Trackpad, which is available for desktop Macs. You can even do a few of them on a Magic Mouse. One of the things that makes the Mac such a pleasure to use is its large and responsive MacBook multi-touch trackpad or the desktop Mac’s Magic Trackpad. You can use the trackpad in much the same way as you would use the touchscreen of an iPhone or iPad: to quickly and easily access menus, sort through stacks of pictures or documents, scroll through documents and to zoom in and out of displayed images. Once you get used to it, you’ll find that it’s a very easy and intuitive way of controlling your Mac and that it can do far more than just scrolling up and down your documents or websites.

Secondary Clicking. Some people like to use a two-button mouse with their Mac, and this can be handy for quick access to shortcut menus by secondary clicking or right-clicking. To set up two-finger secondary clicking using the trackpad, select Secondary Click in the Point & Click pane of Trackpad preferences. To set up a one finger secondary click zone in the bottom left or right corner of the trackpad or mouse, select Secondary Click in the Point & Click pane of Trackpad preferences, and choose an option from the pop-up menu.

Single Click

Unlike most other trackpads, the entire MacBook trackpad works the same as the mouse button; and you can click anywhere on the track pad to activate apps and select icons.

Multi-touch Gestures. The MacBook’s advanced trackpad supports the Multi-touch gestures. They might seem a bit complicated at first but once you get used to them and have had a bit of time to practise, they quickly become second nature. Before long you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them. The trick to using the trackpad properly is to practise using more than one finger at once. Some gestures use two fingers, whilst others use three. You need to apply light, firm pressure and move your fingers smoothly and evenly, all at the same time. Like we said, it takes a little practice but you quickly become proficient at it. To enable Multi-touch gestures, view instructional videos of the gestures and set up various other trackpad options, choose Apple > System Preferences and then click Trackpad.

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Scroll Vertically

Place two fingers together on the trackpad, then move them up or down. This will scroll vertically up or down the document or web page you’re currently viewing.

Gesture Controls

Zoom In and Out

Rotating Images

Access Mission Control

Switching Between Full-screen Apps

Force Click

Turn Off Force Click

Two-finger pinching lets you zoom in or out on PDFs, images, photos, and other large visual documents or web pages. Place two fingers on the trackpad, then move them apart to zoom in, or together to zoom out. The quicker you move your fingers, the more you’ll zoom.

You can access the macOS High Sierra Mission Control at any time, even if you’ve got a full-screen app open. Simply place three fingers at the bottom of the trackpad and move them quickly upwards and Mission Control appears.

The very latest Apple notebooks feature Force Touch trackpads, which can tell a soft tap from a hard tap. A hard tap, or Force Click, can be used to preview a file, drop a pin in Maps, preview a Safari link, rename a file or folder and more. It’s a concept that should prove very familiar to those who have used the latest iPhone models.

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You can rotate images by placing two fingers on the trackpad and then turning your hand so that your fingers both move in a curve. It can be a little awkward on the wrist at first but you’ll soon get used to it. With practice, you wonder how you ever did without it.

If you’ve got several apps open full screen at once, you can quickly flip between them using a gesture. Place three fingers on the trackpad and quickly slide them to the left or right. This will scoot the current app aside, revealing the next in line.

If you dislike the Force Click gesture, and find it gets in the way of your workflow, it’s easy to turn it off. Open System Preferences (under the Apple menu in the top left corner), and go to the Trackpad pane. Under the first tab, Point & Click, you see a checkbox labelled ‘Force Click and haptic feedback’. Uncheck it to turn off this feature.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

The Mac’s Desktop And How to Use it The desktop is at the heart of your Mac. Everything you do takes place on the desktop, including opening apps, interacting with files and folders and using the Dock. Here we show you how to use your desktop, app and folder windows, the top bar menu, menulets, the trash and other key desktop features. 1

Menulet:  A Menulet is

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Utilities:  Easy access to

simply a shortcut or link to the application or file. That way you don’t have to navigate to it every time it’s needed.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi settings, volume level, time and date preferences, some login options and a handy search utility.

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Apple Menu:  From the

Apple menu you can log out, shut down, restart or put the computer into sleep mode, get comprehensive information on the computer’s hardware and software, access the system and dock preferences, and open any recent items.

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Desktop Wallpaper: Why

have a plain background when you can spruce it up with your favourite photo? If you’re bored with the same one day after day, set it to change regularly.

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Folder Icon:  In macOS,

folders work just like their real world counterparts. You can use them to store files, data and other folders. You can call them anything you like.

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Finder Window:  The

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Dock:  The Dock offers quick

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Dock Folder:  You can also

Finder utility is the central point for navigation and file manipulation. Browse and navigate applications, documents, external drives and even access other computers, as long as they’re connected to the same network.

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and easy access to your favourite applications, documents, folders and even the trash can. It’s easily edited and customised to make the most of the way you work. Apps you currently have open are always shown in the Dock.

put folders in the Dock, as shown here. The folder can then be accessed like a Dock app.

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Open Application

9 Window: Application

windows come in all shapes, sizes and designs and are all accessible from the Launchpad, the Dock, or the Finder.

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The Trash:  To delete a file,

folder or application, drag it into here, then right-click on it and choose ‘Empty Trash’ from the menu.

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The Mac’s Desktop

Siri.

Notifications.

Siri is Apple’s personal digital assistant and you can use it with the Mac in High Sierra. Just click on this icon and a Siri window opens. See the Siri tutorial for more information on how to use this feature.

This icon gives you access to your Notification Center sidebar. You can swipe it into and out of view by swiping across the right-hand side of the trackpad or by clicking on the three-line icon in the top right corner. Again, we have a full tutorial on this feature elsewhere.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Choose New Wallpaper

To open the Desktop preferences window, click the Apple menu, select System Preferences, and select the Desktop & Screen Saver option. Select the genre of picture required from the left column.

Click on the image you’d like to use for your wallpaper. The desktop is updated immediately, so if you’re happy with the selection, just close the window. If not, choose another, as seen here.

If you change your mind and want to go back to the desktop you were originally using, just find it among the wallpapers on offer, and click on it to restore it again.

The famous ink cloud wallpaper was previously only available on the iMac Pro but the latest release of macOS: High Sierra brings it to the entire Mac range.

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Use an Image from Your Photos Library. As well as having a great collection of images already supplied, you can also use one of your own photos as a desktop image.

Open the desktop preferences: Apple menu > System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver. Select the Photos item in the directory list, click the small arrow icon to open it.

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Select one of the options within to display any images found. Click on the required image to set it as your desktop’s wallpaper, as you can see here.

The Mac’s Desktop

How to Add Your Own Folder to the Folders List

Automatically Change the Desktop Wallpaper. You can even have your Mac regularly change your desktop image to something new. Try it, it’s fun!

To open the Desktop preferences, click the Apple menu and select System Preferences. In the System Preferences window, select the Desktop & Screen Saver option.

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Click the ‘+’ icon which is below the directory list on the left of the window to display a Finder window. Navigate to the required folder, select it and then press Choose.

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The required folder should now be visible in the Folders section of 3 the directory list. Select your favourite image from the thumbnails, then close the window.

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Display the desktop preferences: Apple menu > System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver. Toggle the Change Picture option to show a tick. This opens the choice menu to the right.

The wallpaper can be set to change from every five seconds to once a day. It can even be set to change when you log in, or when waking the computer from sleep mode, so you should be able to find something suitable.

Once you’ve selected a time option, you can opt to display the images randomly or simply work through sequentially by checking or unchecking the Random Order option. Close the window and enjoy your desktop slide show.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

The Mac’s Menus And How to Use Them Menus are an essential part of interacting with your Mac. Whether it’s a pull-down menu accessed by clicking on the top bar of your desktop or a contextual menu found by right-clicking or CTRL-clicking on a file or folder, you need to know how to use your menus if you are to get the most out of your Mac and High Sierra.

The Apple Menu The Apple menu is found in the top left corner of the desktop. To open it, click on the Apple icon once, then choose an option. It’s always there, whatever you’re doing on your Mac.

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Choose About This Mac for a window showing you technical information about your computer. Tabs at the top of this window let you delve further, looking at its Display, Storage and more; and you can get a full System Report by clicking a button too.

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The System Preferences option opens the Mac’s System Preferences, which we discuss later in this book.

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This option opens the App Store. If updates are available for your Mac or any of its apps, this is noted here too.

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Hover your pointer over the Recent Items option to see the sub-menu showing apps, documents and servers you’ve recently used.

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Click here for the Force Quit window, which lets you force an app, that’s crashed or frozen, to close.

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Click here to put your Mac into Sleep Mode.

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Click here to restart your Mac to the login window.

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Click here to shut down your Mac.

Lock screen brings up your password screen. You have to enter your password to continue to use your Mac. It’s useful if you’re leaving your Mac for a while and don’t want anyone snooping on it.

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Click here to log yourself out but not shut down your Mac. This is only really useful if you have more than one user account on your Mac

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By hovering over the Recent Items option, you get this sub-menu. This is a list of the applications you’ve recently used. Click on one of them to open it.

Servers you’ve recently accessed appear here. We’ve accessed quite a few servers here. To open one again, simply click on it in the menu.

These are the documents you’ve recently used. If you need to open one again, this menu is a quick and easy way to do so.

Click here to completely clear the entire Recent Items sub-menu and start afresh with a clean slate.

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The Mac’s Menus

Contextual Menu

Files and folders have a Contextual Menu that you can access by right-clicking or CTRL-clicking on the item. This menu gives you a range of options, including rename the file, move it to trash, duplicate or copy it, share it using the macOS Share options discussed later in the book and more. The Get Info option brings up a useful information window.

Application Menus

Each application has its own unique set of menus located next to the Apple menu. They will change when an application is active and will revert back to the Finder menu when no apps are active. Each is clearly labelled to make it easier. We’ll add specific details for application menus when we look into the applications themselves later.

Right-clicking and CTRL-clicking. Mac mice and trackpads don’t have built-in buttons, so how do you make a right-click? It’s actually easier than you think.

Your Mac’s Magic Mouse or Trackpad doesn’t have two buttons like a PC’s mouse but you can still use the secondary click. Just hold the Control (CTRL) key and click your mouse or trackpad.

To enable right-clicking, open the Apple menu and choose System Preferences. In the System Preferences window, click on the Mouse or Trackpad icon, depending on which you’re using.

In the next window, of your chosen settings (we’re showing options for the Trackpad) click the checkbox for Secondary Click. There are also a few other options here such as click weighting.

With Secondary Click activated, clicking on the right side of a Magic Mouse or with two fingers on a Magic Trackpad is the equivalent of right-clicking on a two button mouse.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Using the Finder On Your Mac As the Finder underpins everything you do in macOS, it pays to familiarise yourself with its features and functions. Here we show you how to use a Finder window, including a guide to the Finder’s navigation controls and viewing options, and also how to customise the window and get to grips with its more advanced features.

Components of the Finder The Finder is an important part of your Mac’s High Sierra operating system, so pay close attention to the guides over the next few pages. Lessons learned in this section serve you well whatever you’re doing on your Mac.

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Window Control Options: Use the gumdrops to close or

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Navigation Controls: The chevron buttons found under the

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View Options: These four buttons let you set-up how you

minimise the window or open it in full-screen mode. See the tutorial over the page for more details on how to do this.

gumdrops in the top left corner of the window take you forwards or back through your navigation history.

view the files and folders in the Finder window; whether as icons, a list, in columns or as a cover flow.

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Using the Finder

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Item Arrangement List: Click on the button marked

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Share Button: The Share button is found in many places

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Tags Button: You can tag a file or folder to make it easier to

‘Arrange’ for a window offering ways the contents of the window should be ordered; according to date, alphabetically and more.

throughout macOS. Here you can highlight a file or folder and click the button to send it by email, AirDrop etc.

spot, group it with other documents and folders and more. An item can have more than one tag.

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Search: If you’re looking for a specific item, type its name or

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Sidebar: There are various options on the Finder window’s

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File/Folder View: This is quite simply, a list of files and folders

contents into the Search field and press Enter. You can then revise your search if it’s still not found.

sidebar. You can open specific folders like Documents or Downloads, access external drives and more.

that are contained in the currently open folder. They are shown in the format chosen in View Options (see 3).

Displaying a Finder Window

How to Relaunch Finder

There are several ways of opening a new Finder window on your Mac’s desktop. Let’s take a look at each in turn.

If the Finder has crashed or isn’t behaving as it should, follow this tip to close it like a crashed app and relaunch it.

Using Menus

Click a clear space on the desktop once, open the File menu, and select New Finder Window. A window then appears.

Shortcut Keys

If it isn’t already displayed, move your mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen to open the Dock. Click the Finder Window to create a new window.

If the Finder crashes you can relaunch it like you would a crashed app. The easiest way to do this is to click on the desktop to make sure you’re in Finder, hold down the Shift key and click on the Apple menu. The Force Quit option has become Force Quit Finder. Incidentally you can use this method to quit any running app. Just click on one of its windows to bring it to the fore, hold Shift and click on the Apple menu.

Window Controls Options.

Navigation Controls.

The coloured buttons found in the top left corner are used to resize or minimise the Finder window.

These simple controls allow you to retrace your steps backwards and forwards.

Click a clear space on the desktop once to make sure you’re in Finder, then press the CMD and N together. A new Finder window appears.

Using the Dock

Close

Click once on the red button containing a cross. This will work with the majority of windows and applications.

Navigate to a Previous Page

Click the left hand arrow. To continue stepping backwards, repeat step one as many times as necessary.

Minimise

Click the orange button containing a ‘-‘ sign. Again this will work with almost all windows and apps.

Full Screen

Click the green button containing a ‘+’ sign. Will full screen most windows.

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Using the Forward Control

If you’ve moved to a previous page, this button offers step-by-step navigation to your original starting point. Simply click the right-hand arrow as many times as needed.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

View Options

View Window Contents as Icons

View Window Contents as Cover Flow

View Window Contents as Lists

Change the Way Items are Arranged

To display your files and folders as a collection of icons, first open a Finder window then click the first button on the toolbar, showing a group of four squares.

With an open Finder window, click the second button on the toolbar to use a simple but effective list display.

The fourth and last view option is Cover Flow. This is a visually impressive viewing mode that lets you scroll through thumbnails of the files in that directory, especially when used with a Magic Trackpad.

As well as changing the way the items are visually displayed, you can also change the way they are arranged within the file and folder view area.

Name: Alphabetical. Displays numbers first, then A-Z. Kind: This groups each type of item together. Application: Groups together items according to the application in which they were created or are opened. Date Last Opened: Groups according to time and date opened. Date Added: Displays items in order of when they were added. Date Modified: Displays items in order they were last modified or edited.

Date Created: Displays items according to when documents were

View Window Contents as Columns

Click the third button on the toolbar to view your files as a series of columns. It’s great for quick navigation and easy visual identification using a handy image preview column.

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created.

Label: Where no label is found, grouped as ‘No Label’. None: For if you have no preference on how items are arranged.

Using the Finder

More Sidebar Functions. If your sidebar is getting cluttered, you can show or hide its listed items by hovering over the title (Favourites, Devices, Shared, Tags) and clicking the word Show/ Hide that appears as shown. You can also eject external drives, CDs and disk images from the sidebar, by clicking the eject icon next to the device or image you wish to remove.

Perform Tasks Within the Finder

Click on the cog-shaped icon for a drop-down menu. Here you can do a range of operations, from opening a file in a specific application to checking the file size via the Get Info option.

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You can also clean up the entire Finder Window, automatically tidying up and or reorganising the order of the files according to various criteria such as their name (alphabetical), date, size and more.

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File Sharing Using the macOS High Sierra Finder. You can quickly and easily share files using the Finder. Share them with Mail, Notes, Messages, AirDrop, the Photos app, social media accounts and more. Open a Finder Window and navigate to the file you wish to share. Once you have selected it, click on the Share icon at the top of this window. By clicking on this icon you bring up a drop-down menu. From here you can select the method of file sharing, which opens the appropriate program to do so. For example, if you choose email, a blank email with the file already attached opens in the Mail app.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Full-screen Mode

You can view a Finder window, and indeed, an application window, in full-screen mode. Click on the green Enlarge button in the upper left corner of the window and it will expand to fill the entire screen. Alternatively, use the View pull-down menu or press CTRL-CMD-F.

In full-screen mode, the menus usually found at the top of the Mac desktop are still there, but they’re hidden away until you need them. To see them, move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen and the menu bar slides into view.

To exit from full-screen mode back to the usual window view, bring up the Menu bar and then simply click on the green button again. The window shrinks to its previous size and no longer takes up the entire desktop.

You can also take a window out of full screen mode using the View pull-down menu at the top of the screen or by pressing CTRL-CMD-F. You can still close a full-screen window with the red button (top left), though you can’t minimise it with the yellow one.

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Warnings About Older Apps. Apple is phasing out support for some older apps, which need to be updated by their developers soon.

Apple is to phase out support for software made for older, 32-bit processors (modern processors are 64-bit). If you have such an app on your Mac, when you open it, you get a Finder warning telling you the app might affect the performance of your computer.

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Click ‘OK’ and the app still launches at the moment; 32-bit apps currently run, even if you have a 64-bit processor. However, it’s a good idea to go to the developer’s website and see if you can download a more recent version of the app, ahead of Apple abandoning 32-bit apps.

Using the Finder

Changing the Finder Window’s Background Colour or Image

When you’re using the Finder’s Icon View, you can replace the white background with a black one or even a picture. To begin, with the Finder window in question open, select Show View Options from the View menu or press CMD-J.

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The window’s Info window opens. Towards the bottom, you can see options listed under the header ‘Background’. Select ‘Color’ and click on the white square. You can now use the various options to change the background colour.

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Select ‘Picture’ and then drag an image into the box to the right of the background options to get a pictorial background. Alternatively, click on the box and then navigate to the picture you want to use through the Finder.

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Accessing iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive can store and share files across Mac or iOS devices logged into the same iCloud account.

Click on iCloud Drive in the Finder window’s sidebar. You see the iCloud Drive folder is organised according to apps. You can create your own folders here too.

Files and folders found here are synced using iCloud Drive, so they’re available online at www.icloud.com and also on other devices linked to the same iCloud account.

Here we’ve opened the Pages iOS app on an iPad. As you can see, the documents in the Mac’s Pages iCloud Drive folder are also available to open and edit here.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

The Mac’s Dock And How to Use it The Dock is a great way of gaining quick and easy access to all of your most used applications, documents and folders. It is completely customisable, so over time, you can adapt it to best fit your needs. You can keep it on the screen at all times or have it hidden until you need it too. Here’s how to customise and use it.

Accessing Your Applications from the Dock

Add an Application

Move an Application

Remove an Application

Open an Application

To add an app to the Dock, first click the spaceship icon at the left-hand side of the Dock to bring up Launchpad, then click and drag the item you want onto the Dock.

To remove an application from the Dock, simply click and drag the item onto the desktop. The app disappears in a puff of smoke. Note; it’s only removed from the Dock, not from your Mac.

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To move an item to a new location in the Dock, click and drag to the required position. As you move the item the adjacent applications will move aside to indicate the final position.

To open an application that’s in your Dock, simply drag the mouse pointer onto the Dock and click on its icon. The icon bounces as the application opens.

The Mac’s Dock

The Trash. The Trash icon is located at the far right of the Dock and can be filled and emptied just like a real rubbish bin.

Adding and Removing Stacks

You can add, remove and move folders in your Dock, in the same way you do with apps. These sit to the right of the Dock’s divider, and are called Stacks.

You can delete a file, folder or app by dragging it into Trash on the right-hand side of the Dock. Alternatively, right-click or Ctrl-click on it, and select Move to Trash from the contextual menu that appears.

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To retrieve a file from Trash, click on the Trash icon in the Dock to open it in Finder, then drag the file out of the Trash window. To empty Trash, right-click on it and choose ‘Empty Trash’, or in the Trash window, click on the Empty button (top right).

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Accessing Stacks

To access the files and folders within a Stack, click on it to display the contents. Clicking on a document or image opens it with an appropriate application, and clicking on a folder opens it in Finder.

Customising the Dock. You can customise your Dock in System Preferences from the Apple menu and selecting Dock. From here, you can place the Dock on the right, left or bottom of the screen, opt to show and hide it, change its size, change its magnification, choose a minimisation effect and more.

Viewing Options

Right-click or CTRL-click on a Stack for a pop-up menu with a range of options. You can show your files as a Stack (a pile of files) or as a folder. You can also choose how they’re displayed when you click the Stack.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Notification Center How to Get More From it The Notification Center gathers together all your important updates, notifications and everything else you need to know, all in one place. You can configure it to suit your needs, and it also provides on-screen reminders and alerts so you’ll never miss a thing. Here’s how to access and use this handy feature in macOS High Sierra.

Accessing Notification Center

Responding to Notifications

Click the icon showing three horizontal lines preceded by bullet points, which is found on the far right-hand side of the Apple menu bar at the top of the screen. Click on the Notifications tab at the top to see your notifications.

Clicking on any notification in Notification Center takes you to its app. For example, if the notification is a new message, you’re taken to Messages where you can type your response. To get rid of an app’s notifications, click the cross to its right that appears when you hover over it.

Alternatively, use a two fingered right-to-left swipe on a trackpad. This works with a Magic Trackpad (shown here) or a Mac notebook’s built-in trackpad, but you must swipe at the extreme right side of the trackpad.

To turn off all on-screen alerts, go to the Notifications panel, scroll down to the Do Not Disturb switch to mute notifications for the rest of the day. Alternatively hold Alt and click on the Notifications icon in the menu bar. When muted this icon is greyed.

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Notification Center

Notification Center Settings

To open the Notification Center Settings pane, either open the Apple menu and select System Preferences or click on System Preferences in the Dock. You can find the Notifications preference pane in the top right corner of the window.

Alternatively, open the Notification Center as explained on the previous page and click on the cog icon in the bottom right corner of the Notifications panel. The preference pane for Notification Center is opened straight away.

In the Notifications Settings pane you’ll see a list of your apps. You can select which ones you want to appear in Notification Center here. Click on an app to show its options in the panel on the right-hand side, as shown.

Alert Style controls how notifications appear. Select Banners and they appear briefly on-screen and then disappear. Choose Alerts and the notification remains on the screen until it’s actioned or manually dismissed. Choosing None turns off the app’s pop-up notifications.

All notifications appear in the Notification Center sidebar pane regardless of the option you choose here. You can select different Alert Style settings for different apps, so some are shown as banners, some as alerts and some not at all.

Using the pull-down menu, you can change the order in which Notification Center displays its notifications. Order them manually by app and then you can drag the apps in the left-hand window into a preferred order.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

The Spotlight Feature Making the Most of it Spotlight Search is Apple’s unique and ultra-powerful search system that can find almost anything on your Mac. There’s a whole raft of great features, making it a really powerful and useful tool that’s integrated into the apps that you use every day. Here’s how to get the most from the macOS High Sierra’s Spotlight feature.

Using Spotlight’s Features

To start using Spotlight, press CMD and the space bar, or click the magnifying glass in the top menu, and the Spotlight Search window appears. In High Sierra, unlike older versions of Spotlight, you can drag this window to wherever you want on the screen; it’s not fixed in position.

Start typing your search query into Spotlight and immediately answers appear, with suggestions based on the contents of your computer as well as other sources. This may mean you only have to type a few letters of your search term to find what you’re looking for.

Spotlight can do instant unit conversions for you. For example, if you want to convert from imperial to metric weights (or vice versa) you just type in the number and a type of unit, such as kilograms or pounds and Spotlight instantly converts into other commonly used units.

It works in a similar way with distances and lengths, which Spotlight can instantly convert into other units. For example, if you type a distance in miles it instantly shows what it is in kilometres, metres, yards, feet and inches. You can even convert parsecs into light years.

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The Spotlight Feature

Spotlight can also do some currency conversions. Type in a number and a currency unit, such as dollars or pounds, and Spotlight gives you the value in several other currencies at the current exchange rate.

For more conventional searches, Spotlight pulls its information from a wide range of sources, such as Wikipedia and documents it finds on your Mac. Search results are listed by category down the left side of the search window, with the top result displayed on the left.

If you’re looking for local businesses or sites of interest, simply type the name into Spotlight and you’ll quickly find what you’re looking for, complete with a link to the Maps app and the option of travel directions from your current location.

You can find people with Spotlight too. Start typing the name of someone you know, and Spotlight quickly finds that person in your Contacts list and displays their contact details in the results window. Things like chat threads, Facebook comments and emails are also listed.

Spotlight is also closely integrated into the core macOS apps, such as Photos. Start typing in your search term, like the title of a particular image or photo album in your Photos app, and Spotlight quickly locates it and takes you straight to it.

Spotlight can help you find music by searching through your iTunes collection to find albums, tracks and artists. Type a band name, a track name or even the name of a band member. Recordings with that name or by that band or person are shown.

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An Introduction to Your Mac and macOS

Set Up Email Accounts On Your Apple Mac For many people, the ability to send and receive emails is their primary reason for having a computer and an Internet connection. Here we take a look at what email is, how you can get yourself an email address and how you can use your email accounts on your Mac, with Apple’s bundled email client, the Mail app.

Setting Up Your iCloud Email

If you set up your Apple ID during your Mac’s initial setup, or if you signed in with an existing Apple ID, your iCloud email account is already in place. But if not, or if you want to add another iCloud email account to your Mail client, follow these instructions.

Open the Mail application from the Dock and then under the Mail drop-down menu found in the left of the menu bar, click on the Add Account... link. From the pop-up menu that appears, select the iCloud link and then click on the Continue button.

Now enter your Apple ID. This is the Apple ID and password you probably chose when you initially set up your Mac. When you have confirmed your details you can then click on the Sign In button to take you to the next step.

On the next screen, click on Add Account and your iCloud account is added to the Mail app, for you to use on your Mac. Your iCloud email can be your sole email account or you can use it in Mail or alongside others if you wish.

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Set Up Email Accounts

Setting Up Email

To configure your Mac to access your email account from your Internet service provider, you need your email address, your password to access your email account, and POP or IMAP (incoming) and SMTP (outgoing) server addresses.

macOS High Sierra includes a sophisticated email program, simply called Mail. You can find it on the Dock, as it’s there by default. The Mail App’s icon looks like a postage stamp showing an eagle. Click on this icon to open the Mail app.

When you first open Mail you’re prompted to set up your first email account. If you’ve previously used Mail or set up another account, you can add further new accounts by going to the File menu and selecting Add Account.

You’re now asked to enter your full name (this appears in your own, and other people’s, contact lists), your email address and your password (both supplied by your email service provider). Make sure you type them in correctly. Click Continue when you’re done.

You’re asked for the incoming mail server address. You should have been given an address when you signed up for your account. Type it in the box marked Incoming Mail Server. You can add a description if you want and when you have it all correct, click on Continue.

You’re asked for the SMTP or outgoing mail server address. Type it where it says Outgoing Mail Server. Check the Use Only This Server box and if your email service requires it, also check the Use Authentication box. Type in your username and password, then click Continue.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac Y

our Mac comes with a wide range of bundled apps, for everything from browsing the web to keeping contact information handy. In this

section we bring you guides to the key apps that came with your Mac, showing you their basic functions, and also advanced features of which you might not be aware.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

Contents 48 The Safari App – Your Web Browser

49 Full-Screen Browsing



53 The Safari Reading List

56 The Mail App – Your Mac’s Email Client

57 Adding Attachments to Email



58 The Mail Markup Feature

60 The Photos App – Manage and Edit Pics

65 Sharing Photos and Projects

66 Importing Images – From a Third-party 67 Exporting Photos – From the Photos App 68 QuickTime Player App – For Playing & Recording

69 Sharing from QuickTime Player

70 The iTunes App – For Your Digital Music

72 Importing Your CDs into iTunes

74 Apple Music – The Streaming Service 76 The Contacts App – For All Contact Details

77 Using Contacts on iCloud

78 The Calendar App – For Planning Events

81 Sending Invitations via Calendar

82 The Reminders App – Never Forget Again 84 The Messages App – For On-screen Chats

85 Start a Conversation in Messages

86 The iBooks App – Buy and Read eBooks 90 The FaceTime App – Video Calls on a Mac

91 FaceTime Audio Calls

92 The Notes App – To Store Your Jottings 96 The Maps App – For Directions and More

98 3D Flyover Tours

100 The Preview App – View Images and More 102 The App Store App – To Buy Mac Software

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

The Safari App Your Web Browser The last two releases of the Mac’s OS added many improvements to your Safari web browser, including a new simpler toolbar and controls. Safari is your gateway to the Internet, so it’s important that you familiarise yourself with the browser’s interface before you begin your online adventure. 1

Navigation Controls:  These

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Toolbar Buttons:  These

two arrow control buttons enable you to move back and forth between current and previously viewed web pages.

buttons give you access to various Safari features. You can add or remove buttons by right-clicking or CTRL-clicking on the toolbar and selecting Customize Toolbar. See the section on Customising the Sierra Finder for more information.

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URL Bar:  Enter the website

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Reload Page:  Sometimes, if a

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Share Button:  Click on this

address of your choice or a search term that you wish to look up into this bar, then tap the Return key.

web page fails to load properly, you can fix the problem by clicking on this button and reloading the page.

button to see your options for sharing the page you’re viewing using email or social media networks, including adding the page to your reading list.

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Show Open Pages:  Click on

this button to view all web pages you currently have open in the Safari browser, on both your Mac and other devices signed into your iCloud.

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Safari Tabs:  When you’re

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Add a New Tab:  Clicking this

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Sidebar:  This optional display

browsing the Internet and you want to have several pages open at once, you can view each of them in their own separate tabs.

button will open a new blank tab, which is then accessible by clicking on the tab and entering a search parameter or a URL web address in the URL bar.

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area is opened and closed by clicking on the sidebar button in the toolbar, next to the Navigation Controls. It’s updated in real time.

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Bookmarks:  Click on this button

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Reading List:  From here you

in the sidebar to see your bookmarks list, with your favourite web pages and sites, which can be visited by clicking the link.

can view all the pages you have added while browsing, using the Add to the Reading List button.

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Edit Bookmarks:  Previous

versions of Safari had an Edit button here. This has now been removed but you can still go to the Bookmarks menu and select Edit Bookmarks.

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Safari

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Main Window:  This is where the

web page you’re viewing is displayed. You can scroll up and down by using the scroll function on your mouse.

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Links:  Click on a web link to be taken

to another page. Web links can be text, which is usually underlined, or a picture as seen here. When you’ve moved to a new page, you can return using the Back button (see entry ‘1’, on Navigation Controls).

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Full-screen Browsing. If you want a little more space for your Safari window, you can browse in full-screen mode by either clicking on the green gumdrop in the top left corner as shown, selecting Enter Full Screen in the View menu or pressing Ctrl-CMD-F on the keyboard. To go back to regular browsing, repeat any of these options.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

Set New Home Page

Display Status Bar

Open a new Safari window and navigate to the web page that you want Safari to load each time you launch the app or open a new window or browser tab. Click the Safari menu (top left corner), then select Preferences to display Safari’s preferences dialog box.

Ensure a Safari window is open and active, i.e. the window controls in the top left are the usual colours, and not coloured grey. Click the View menu and select the Show Status Bar option, which is found near the top of the menu.

Ensure the General tab is selected and press the Set to Current Page button. A small window may pop up requiring confirmation; press Change Homepage to continue. The required page address now appears in the text box above. It’s now your default home page.

You should now see a grey strip along the lower part of the window. If you hover the mouse over a link, the status bar tells you exactly where the link is headed. This is very useful if you suspect the link takes you somewhere you don’t want to go.

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Using Links. You navigate the worldwide web in Safari by using hyperlinks or simply ‘links’. Clicking on one takes you to a new page.

A link in Safari can be a piece of underlined text, a picture or a button, or simply an area of the screen. Drag your mouse pointer across Safari. When it’s over a link, the pointer turns into a hand. Click there to open the linked page in your browser.

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If you don’t want to navigate away from the page that you’re currently on, right-click or Ctrl-click on the link and from the pop-up menu, choose Open in New Tab or Open in New Window. You can then look at the new page without closing the old one.

Safari

Display Tab Bar

Add Tools to the Toolbar

To toggle Safari’s handy Tab bar on and off, open a Safari window and click View in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Select the Show Tab Bar option. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut: simply press CMD-Shift-T.

Right-click or CMD-click on the toolbar and select Customise Toolbar; or click the View menu and select the option from there. A window slides down. To add a button to the toolbar, simply drag it from the selection in the window onto the Toolbar.

Your current page should now have a tab marker just below the bookmarks bar, as shown here. To add a new tab, click the ‘+’ sign at the right of the Tab bar. If you want to hide the Tab Bar again, repeat Step 1 and it disappears.

Repeat this with as many tools as you need. When you’re finished, click Done. To remove a tool from the toolbar, hold the CMD key and drag it off; it disappears in a puff of smoke. To reset the tools to how they were originally, drag the default set of tools onto the Toolbar.

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Tailor Site Settings and Block Auto-play Videos. If you want to customise your Safari window’s Toolbar, there are a variety of useful tools that can be added.

You can tailor specific settings like the zoom level, location services, content blockers and more for individual websites. These settings are then applied whenever you load that site. Open the website and in the Safari menu, select Settings for This Website.

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Page Zoom and Auto-Play are set with pull-down menus that appear when you hover over their current values. By default, the Auto-Play function stops videos with sound automatically playing when you open a site but you can override this using the Auto-Play menu.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

Safari’s Top Sites.

Pinned Sites

Top Sites gives you a window full of useful shortcuts to your most frequently visited sites. Here’s how it works.

If you’re not currently in Tab view, go to the View menu and select the Show Tab Bar option near the top of the menu. Now open the site you intend to pin and right or CTRL-click on its tab. From the pop-up menu, select the Pin Tab option.

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Click on the URL field at the top of the browser to access a window showing a grid view of website thumbnails you’ve marked as favourites, and also those you’ve visited most recently.

The site gets a small tab in the left-hand side of the tabs bar. This is always in place, ready for you to click on it and open the site. You can pin multiple sites in this way. They all appear as small tabs, showing a symbol or letter indicating their content.

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To add a site to your Top Sites, click on the URL field to open the Top Sites window. Drag the URL from the URL field into this window; put it wherever you like. It’s then available in Top Sites.

To remove a site from Top Sites, open the Top Sites window, and drag the site you want to remove off the window. You can also drag the site icons around within the window to rearrange their order.

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To remove a site’s pinned tab, right-click or CTRL-click on it and from the pop-up menu, select Unpin Tab. The previously pinned tab then becomes a regular tab. You can reorder your pinned tabs by dragging them within the tabs bar.

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Safari

The Safari Reading List

The Tabs Audio Indicator

Open Safari and browse to a web page as normal. If you want to save the page for later, click on the Share button in the right side of the toolbar and select Add to Reading List from the menu options. The site is added to your Reading List, from where you can read it later.

Websites that play audio as soon as you open the page are really annoying. Thankfully, individual tabs can be silenced using this simple Safari tip. In Safari you can tell which one is making the sound. Just look for the tab with the speaker icon, shown on its right.

To view your Reading List, open the sidebar and click on the middle button, the symbol of a pair of spectacles. You see the title, a thumbnail and a brief summary of the page that you saved. To revisit any of the pages in your list, click on the list entry to go straight to it.

You can mute this sound by simply clicking on the speaker icon. If more than one tab is producing audio, right-click on it for more options. You can see which tabs are making a sound, mute that particular tab or mute all the others.

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Stop Online Tracking. Some online advertisers track your online behaviour. To protect your privacy, High Sierra Safari can block this. In the Safari menu, open System Preferences, click on the Privacy tab and tick ‘Ask Websites not to track me’.

You can search your reading list by typing in the search bar at the top of the list, and view only unread links by clicking on the Unread button. To remove a site from your reading list, right-click or CTRL-click on the site you want to delete and from the contextual menu that appears, select Remove Item.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

Using Bookmarks.

Getting More from Safari

If you find a site that you like and would like to keep coming back to it, you can add a convenient Safari bookmark.

Show All Tabs

The Show All Tabs view, available via the View menu, lets you view thumbnails of all the tabs you have open. Click one to open it, and click ‘+’ for a new one. At the foot of the window, you’ll see tabs open on other devices logged in with the same Apple ID. Add a bookmark for a site by clicking on the Sharing icon and selecting Add Bookmark. You can also use the Add Bookmark option from the Bookmarks pull-down menu or press CMD-D.

Private Browsing

Private Browsing lets you browse the Internet without adding tracking cookies or recording where you’ve been in your history. Activate Privacy Mode by selecting New Private Window in the File menu. In a private window, the URL field is darkened. You can access your bookmarks by using the Bookmarks pull-down menu. Click on one of the listed sites to open it in the current window. Bookmarks can be arranged into folders, thus grouping similar sites.

Clear Browsing History Click on Bookmarks and select Edit Bookmarks. From here, you can edit the names of bookmarks by right-clicking, arrange them into folders (see the New Folder button) and delete them by dragging into Trash.

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In the History menu, the bottom option clears your browsing history and website data. Hold Alt while you select it to delete your browsing history, but not website data. To clear more selectively, select Clear History in the Safari menu and use the pull-down menu.

Safari

Import Bookmarks

Change Your Search Engine

Integrated Spotlight Search

Safari Extensions

To import bookmarks from another browser, in the File menu, go to Import From and select the browser in question, or select Bookmarks HTML File and navigate to a previously exported file. You can export Safari bookmarks for use in other browsers from the File menu too.

Spotlight search is a closely integrated feature of macOS, including Safari. From the search bar you can find links to web pages, bookmarks, browsing history and documents on your hard drive, simply by typing a search term.

To change the search engine Safari uses by default, select Preferences from the Safari menu. Click on the Search tab and from the pull-down select the search engine you want to use. The sites on offer are Google, Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuck Go.

You can add extensions to Safari to expand its functionality. Open Safari’s Preferences window (Safari > Preferences) and select Extensions. Click on the Get Extensions button to access a web page, from where they can be installed.

The Reader View. Safari’s Reader View cuts down on the distractions and lets you concentrate on what it is you’re trying to read.

The Reader View isn’t available on every web page. Look for these lines that appear in the left-hand side of the URL field when you hover the pointer over it. If they’re there, you can click them to access the Reader View, for a simpler (and easily printed) page.

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The Reader View has been overhauled for High Sierra. Right or Ctrl-click on the Reader View icon, and you get a menu as shown, from where you can opt to always use Reader View on the current site. You can also click the two As icon to change the font, size and more.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

The Mail App Your Mac’s Email Client Millions of people use email every day for their personal and business correspondence, because it is quick, easy and convenient. High Sierra has a great bundled email application, so sending and receiving emails is as easy as typing a message and clicking a button. Here’s how to get the most from the Mail app.

Sending a New Email

Here we show you how to open a new, blank email, write a message and send it to a given email address using the Mac’s Mail app. To send a new email, click on the button in the top left corner of the screen, with a picture on it that looks like a pen writing on paper.

To send someone an email, type their email address into the box marked To:. To also send it to someone else, add their email address in the Cc: box. Add multiple email addresses in either box, separated by commas, to send the same message to a group of people.

It’s always a good idea to put something in the subject line, even if it’s just ‘Hello!’. Type the body of your message in the large space below. An email can be as long as you like and you can use different fonts, colours and sizes if you really feel the need.

Once you’ve finished typing your letter, click the Send button in the top left corner of the email panel to send it on its way. Email is usually sent very quickly, and your addressee should receive it within a couple of minutes.

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Mail

Receiving Email. When you receive an email in your inbox, this is how you open and read it using macOS High Sierra’s Mail app.

Replying to and Forwarding Email Once you’ve set up your email account, you can send and receive email. As soon as you launch Mail, it connects to your email service and collect any email that is waiting for you. These messages are shown as a list in your Inbox. Click on one and it’s displayed on the right.

While Mail is running, it periodically checks the server for new messages. You can also prompt Mail to look at the server immediately by clicking the button in the top left of the screen that looks like an envelope.

If someone you know sends you an email, you’ll probably want to reply to them. Simply click on the email so you are viewing the text of it, then at the top of the screen you’ll find a row of three buttons. The leftmost one has a single left-pointing arrow on it. This is the Reply button. If you click on this you’ll see a window pop up that looks a lot like the window for a new email, but it will have the responder’s email address already in the To: box. Next to the Reply button is a similar button with two left arrows on it. This is the Reply All button; use this with extreme care. If you have been sent an email that has also been sent to a number of other recipients, hitting Reply All will send your reply to everyone who received the original mail. Obviously if your reply was meant to be private this is a very bad idea, and has got many people into trouble. The rightmost button of these three is the Forward button, which is used to send an email you’ve received to another recipient. Forwarding emails is another thing that requires care; make sure that you don’t accidentally send private information to someone who was not meant to receive it.

Adding Attachments. Almost any type of file can be attached and sent over the Internet along with your email. Here’s how to use attachments in the Mail app.

To add an attachment, first start an email (or reply to one you received), and then click on the button bearing the picture of a paperclip, at the top right-ish of the email panel. This will open a Finder window, allowing you to navigate to the file or files that you want to send. Select the ones you want, then click Choose File to attach them.

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In Mail, pictures you’ve included as attachments are shown in the body of the email for convenient viewing. This means you can turn your email into a mini-illustrated article if you want; or, if you don’t want to display it as an attachment, click on it and from the contextual menu, choose Show as Icon. It can still be opened by the recipient.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

The Mail Markup Feature

The Markup feature lets you add notes and scribbles to pictures attached to an email before you send it. To begin using Markup, start writing a new email as normal, then open the photo browser by clicking on the button in the top right corner of the email window.

Drag the image you want to attach from the photo browser onto the body of the email. You can place it anywhere in the email: above, below or in the middle of any text you’ve already entered. The photo appears where you dropped it in the email.

Click on the attached image, and then click on the small arrow that appears in the upper right corner of the photograph, as seen here, to bring up a drop-down menu. Select the Markup option to open the Mail app’s Markup feature.

You can now use the interface that appears to add text, drawings or a range of shapes and symbols directly onto the photo, right there in the email environment. When you’re finished, click the Done button, and either mark up more pictures or send your email as normal.

Show Only Unread Messages.

Flagging an Email.

If you’ve got a lot of unread messages scattered throughout your inbox, you can hide emails you’ve already read by clicking this icon. Now only unread messages are shown. Click it again to show all your emails once more. It’s great for finding emails that you received a while ago but haven’t seen yet.

To mark an email with a flag, highlighting it for later reference, click on the Flag pull-down and choose a colour. You can add more than one flag to a single email. Choose Clear Flag to remove flags you’ve already added. The ‘Flagged’ option in the side bar shows emails you’ve marked with a flag.

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Mail

Mail Drop.

Searching Your Emails

If you need to send large attachments via email, the Mail Drop feature is very useful. It’s really easy to use too.

If an attachment you wish to email is too large for a regular email, it’s stored on Apple’s server and offered as a download instead. Depending on whether the recipient is using Mail, the attachment could appear as a download link or as thumbnails.

Here, we received huge photos, which are displayed as thumbnails. You can download them all by hovering over the email and clicking on the paperclip as shown. They’re kept on Apple’s server for a month from the date they were sent.

Type your search term into the search field in the top right. Suggestions are offered for items such as people, subjects and attachments; emails that meet your search requirements are shown in the email list.

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After clicking on one of the suggested items, you can adjust your search by clicking the first word in the field and choosing a new option, as shown here, or even adding a second search term for more advanced searches.

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Mail in Full Screen Mode. The Mail app’s full-screen mode works slightly differently in High Sierra. Here’s a guide on how to use this useful feature.

Writing or replying to an email when the Mail app’s in full screen mode is slightly different in High Sierra. Click on the green gumdrop in the top left corner of the Mail app window to take the app into full screen mode.

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Start a new email or opt to reply to one you’ve already received. The screen is split, with your outgoing email shown on the right. Drag the dividing line to make more room for the email app. The email’s gumdrops are shown by dragging your pointer to the top of the screen.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

The Photos App Manage and Edit Pics macOS High Sierra brings a wealth of new features to the Photos app. The sidebar is now always there and holds more options than before. Imports are listed according to date whilst a filter option lets you view your photos according to key words. Editing is improved too. Let’s take a look at the Photos app. 1

Size Slider:  This slider sets the

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Arrangement Options:  Click

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Information:  Click here for an

size of the thumbnails in this management window. If it’s missing, you can’t change the thumbnail size on that particular screen.

on a tab to change how your photos are arranged. Photos just shows the pics, whilst Moments, Collections and Years orders them according to when taken.

information window. If you’ve highlighted a photo, it shows you the camera used and location where it was taken. You can add your own notes here if you wish.

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Share Button:  Click on a photo

to select it and then here to share. Hold CMD and click on several photos to share more than one at a time. You can also set it as a desktop picture.

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Favourites:  Highlight one or

more photos and this button adds them to your favourites (or removes them if there already). Alternatively, hover over a pic and click the heart in the corner.

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Rotate:  Clicking this button turns

a highlighted or open photo through 90° anti-clockwise. A second, third and fourth click turns the photo 180°, 270° and 360° in turn.

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Search Field:  You can search

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Library Options:  The options

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your photos according to keywords and descriptions that you’ve added yourself using the Information button, or according to what’s in them.

in the Library section of the sidebar let you display photos in different ways. For example, People shows pics you’ve identified with a person or people in the photo. Places shows where they were taken. Recently Deleted lets you recover pictures you’ve erased.

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Info Bar:  Shows the dates on

which a group of photos was taken. Click on the chevron after the date to see that particular group of pictures displayed as a Memory.

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Shared Albums:  Here you can

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Albums: Media Types:  In

choose to view your shared albums, such as those shared with family (see Family Sharing) or iCloud (see iCloud Photo Library).

the Media Types section, albums of specific kinds of file are automatically grouped. It’s a great way of finding all your videos or screenshots.

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Photos

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Albums: My Albums:  Highlight a group of photos and click

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Projects:  Click the plus sign found when hovering here when

the plus sign found when you hover here to make a new album. To add pics to it later, right or Ctrl-click on it and select ‘Add to’.

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Your Photos:  Here you see your photographs. Double click on

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Showing Filter:  Click here for a pop-up window that lets you

one of the photos to open it, single click to select it, hold CMD and click on a series of photos to select more than one picture.

you want to create a printed photo book, card or calendar, order prints of your photographs or simply make a slideshow.

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filter your photos to show only Favourites, images you’ve edited, photos, videos and files containing keywords.

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The Editing Tools

To enter Edit Mode, double-click the photo you wish to edit to open it. Now, in the top right corner, click on the Edit button. If you just want to do a quick edit, you can click the Auto Enhance tool to its left, which automatically enhances your pic.

The Auto Enhance tool can also be found here on the Edit Screen. Again, click the button to automatically enhance your photo. Click it a second time to undo this automatic enhancement. The Done button takes you back to the main Photos screen.

Click a triangle in the sidebar to open a tool. The Light, Colour and Black & White tools give you sliders to increase or reduce the brightness and saturation, or switch to a monochrome image. Click the Options triangles for more advanced tools.

Retouch removes unwanted objects from a picture. Click the brush, then click and drag to paint over the object. Let go and it’s removed. Red Eye lets you paint out red pupils caused by camera flash. You can adjust the brush size with both tools.

In White Balance, select the feature to adjust with the pull-down and use the slider to change it. Levels take time to master. Hover your pointer over the graph and drag the dots at the foot of the vertical lines to adjust. You can use the pull-down to adjust one colour at a time.

In Curves, drag the diagonal line or the dots under the right and left ends. A useful trick is to click on the left dropper and click something black, then the right dropper and click on something white. The Definition tool is another slider.

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Photos

Selective Colour and Noise Reduction are sliders. The former lets you make adjustments to one colour at a time, using the pickers and sliders, and Noise Reduction is for smoothing out speckles and other such imperfections in the photo.

The Sharpen tool lets you sharpen pictures that are out of focus. You can sharpen the edges, adjust the intensity and more. The Vignette option lets you add an adjustable shadow to the edges of the photograph, as you can see we’ve done here.

Select the Filters tab and you can automatically add an effect to your photo. Here we’ve gone for Vivid Warm but you can also set it cooler, make it monotone and more. Choosing another filter to overrides the last one. Choose Original to remove all filters.

Use the Crop tab to rotate your photo if it isn’t straight and also to crop it by dragging the corners into the photo. The Flip option in the sidebar mirrors the pic and Aspect lets you resize the photo according to an aspect ratio of your choice.

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Universal Tools. All the options in Edit Mode have these three tools, which appear when you hover over or open one of the settings tools. The curly arrow reverses the last adjustment you made. Auto makes an automatic enhancement with that tool only and the tick in a circle toggles the last edit you did on and off, so you can see the difference it has made.

Edits made in the Photos app are non-destructive. This means whatever you’ve done to your picture can be reversed. If you don’t like your edits, just click the Reset Adjustments button in the bottom right corner and your photo reverts to its original settings.

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Mastering Projects

You can use Photos to create print projects like a calendar or a book, and have it delivered to your door. First select the images you want to use then click the ‘+’ that appears when you hover over My Projects. Now select the project you want to create. You can add more photos later.

Choose Book and you can select a page count and book style. You can move the photos around to suit your needs, add text if applicable and add pages or further photos using the tools in the top right corner. Drag a photo onto an existing one to replace it.

Creating a calendar is very similar. Choose the month you wish it to start with, pick a style and edit to suit. A new tool button in the top right lets you add details from High Sierra’s Calendar app to your printed calendar. Just the thing for remembering birthdays.

For prints or cards, you once again pick your style and size. They’re priced individually and you can order as many or as few as you wish. Editing options are available if you want to stylise your prints or cards in some way.

When finished, you can order a printed copy using the button in the top right. Follow the on-screen instructions and it’s purchased using your Apple ID and delivered to your home. Since the upgrade to High Sierra, you can buy through third-party companies as well as Apple.

As well as paid-for printed projects, you can also make a slideshow and export it as a video file. Choose themes, background music and various settings using the tools on the right and reorder the photos by clicking and dragging them in the timeline at the bottom of the window.

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The Memories Slideshow

The Memories option is a new way of enjoying your photos. It’s also the easiest way of making a slideshow. To use this feature, first select the pictures you want to show in a slideshow, right or Ctrl-click on one of them and select Play Slideshow from the pop-up menu.

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From the pop-up window that appears, choose a theme that sets the way the pictures transition from one to another. Then click Music at the top of the window and pick a tune: a preset or one from your iTunes. Then press the Play Slideshow button to watch your memories.

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Sharing Photos and Projects. As well as managing and editing your photos, the new Photos app also lets you share them. Here’s how to go about doing so.

To share a photo, or a group of photos, hold the CMD key and click on all the ones you want to share, then click on the Sharing button. You can use the Sharing button on the top bar or hover over a Moment, causing one to appear that shares only that particular group of photos.

To share photos using iCloud Photo Sharing, choose that option from the pop-up menu. You can then add the pictures to an existing shared album, or start a new one. You can invite people to look at the album by typing their email address in the invites field.

Choose Messages or Mail, and you can share your photos using a picture message or an email. Or you can choose AirDrop, and send it wirelessly to a nearby device. This is probably the easiest way, as long as the recipient also has AirDrop on their Mac or iOS device.

Finally, if you’ve integrated your social media accounts with macOS, you can send pictures directly to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. If you haven’t, open System Preferences (under the Apple menu), click on Internet Accounts and then add the one you wish to use.

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Importing Images From a Third-party There are times when you want to import photographs from third party sources to your Photos app. Maybe you’ve seen something on the web you want to add, or a friend has given you a selection of photographs on a USB stick or a CD/DVD. Thankfully, getting them into your own Photos app on your Mac is easy.

Adding Pictures to Photos

If you’re using the Safari browser to surf the web, and you come across a picture you want to save to Photos, right-click on it and in the contextual menu, select Share > Save to Photos. Alternatively, you can drag the photo onto your desktop and from there, drag it onto the Photos app’s icon. This works in any browser.

If you’ve been given a selection of photos on a memory stick, plug it into your Mac. In the Photos app, under the File menu, select Import. Navigate to the photos (the USB stick should be in the sidebar) and highlight them. Click Review for Import, then click on each photo you wish to be imported.

After selecting the photos you wish to import, use the Import Selected button at the top of the window to import your selection; or use the Import All New Photos to automatically import every photo that isn’t already in your Photos app. You can use the Import To pull-down menu to add them to a specific album.

If you connect a camera (or just its memory card), you can import pictures in the way described in Steps 2 and 3. To transfer photos from your iPhone, click on it in the Photos app’s sidebar, then go to Step 3. Alternatively, you can open Image Capture and import them using the Import To pull-down as shown here.

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Importing and Exporting Photos

Exporting Photos From the Photos App There are many reasons why you might want to copy photographs from your Photos app onto another device or onto your Mac, but outside the Photos app. These tips and tricks do just that. Note the photographs you export using these tips are copied, not moved; they remain in your Photos app unless you also delete them.

Exporting Your Photos

Choose the photos you want to copy. Select multiple photos by holding CMD as you click. A simple way of exporting them is simply to drag them onto the desktop. This is ideal if you then want to burn them to an optical disk or copy them to a USB stick.

Click the File menu and go to Export. This gives you options to export all your selected pics, unmodified originals of those pics and more. Choose one and you get a window giving more options. Make your choices, click Export then navigate to where you want them to go.

As you’d expect, you can export photos to other apps, social media services and more using the Share icon. This is the button showing a square and an up-pointing arrow, found in the toolbar. Click on it for a pop-up window full of various sharing options, as seen here.

If you’re running the latest version of macOS, there’s no need to export or copy a photograph to another destination if you only want to edit it in another photo editing app. Just right-click on the photo, choose Edit With in the contextual menu then select the app of your choice.

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QuickTime Player App For Playing & Recording The QuickTime Player app comes bundled with your Mac and it’s more than just a video player. You can also use it to record, edit and share audio and video files, all from your Mac. Here we show you how to enjoy your QuickTime videos, make simple video and screen recordings, record audio casts and more.

Playing and Recording Audio and Video

After opening a QuickTime-compatible video or audio file in the QuickTime Player app, drag your mouse pointer onto the QuickTime window to see the controls. These let you alter the volume, fast forward, rewind or scroll through your movie using the timeline.

To make an audio or video recording, first of all, under the QuickTime Player app’s File menu, choose New Movie Recording or New Audio Recording respectively. A window pops up. We’re making a movie recording here but the process is similar for audio recordings.

Click the down-pointing chevron next to the red button as shown and you can change the camera from which you make the recording. Here we’re using the Mac’s built-in iSight camera but you can also connect an external camera or mic if you wish.

Click the red record button and make your recording. When you’re done, click the square button that’s replaced it to stop recording. You can then play back your new movie, save or export it using the File menu or share it using the macOS Share icon.

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QuickTime Player App

Screen Recording. You can also use QuickTime Player to make a recording of your Mac’s screen or even an iOS device. Let’s see how it’s done.

In the File menu, choose New Screen Recording. Click the chevron next to the record button to change settings. If you don’t want a voiceover, choose None as your mic. To start recording, click the button. To end it, click the square icon in the menu bar.

To record the screen of an iOS device, connect it to your Mac with the USB cable and in QuickTime Player, choose New Movie Recording. Then choose your iOS device using the chevron next to the record button. A Lightning connection and at least iOS 8 are required.

Editing Your Recordings

Sharing from QuickTime Player To trim your movie, in the Edit menu, choose Trim. Drag in the yellow handles, removing unwanted footage at the start or finish of your movie. You can play a video you’re trimming, to make sure you’ve done it right. When you’re satisfied, click the Trim button.

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Move your mouse pointer over the QuickTime window to get the controls and click on the Share icon as shown. You can then send your video using Mail or Messages, save it to a note or the photos app and if you’ve set them up, post it to social media services.

VLC Video Player. If you have a video file that won’t play in QuickTime Player, download the free VLC media player. It’s not the most elegant of applications but it plays a huge variety of video formats on your Mac. Download it from the official VLC website at www.videolan.org.

To split a video, go to the point in the timeline where you want to make a break and choose Edit > Split Clip. You can then move a piece of your video to another point in the timeline. You can also use the Edit menu to flip or rotate videos or clips.

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The iTunes App For Your Digital Music macOS High Sierra includes the latest version of iTunes, Apple’s versatile and powerful application for buying and organising media, and managing your mobile devices. It’s more than just a music player. You can make purchases through the application and also import your own music. So let’s turn it up to eleven!

How to Find Your Way Around iTunes The latest version of iTunes contains many amazing features, including sharing across networks or connected devices and connecting with friends. iTunes is a core component of your macOS experience and an area that you will not only need to understand fully but also one that can change how you digest your entertainment on your Mac. It’s a really great app.

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File Type: 

This is where you select what kind of media you want to look at. Click on Music, Movies, TV Shows or Radio to see a list of the available media in your library. Click on an album to be shown its track listing.

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Main Controls: 

These are the basic controls such as Play, Pause and Skip Track. You can also change the play order of your current album or Playlist by hitting the Shuffle option to the far right of the timer bar, or Repeat the current track by tapping the repeat option to the far left. The small icon by the album name opens up a second options menu.

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External Device: 

If you have a wireless device such as a speaker or headphones connected, click here to stream your music to it instead of using your Mac’s speakers.

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Apple Music: 

These categories are used to find, select, play and download songs and albums using the new Apple Music service. We will show you how to set up and use Apple Music, through iTunes for Mac, later in this tutorial.

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iTunes Store: 

The iTunes store is where you go to buy new music, videos and apps. Clicking on the iTunes Store link takes you to an online shopping interface where you can browse what’s on offer; or search for the specific band, song, album or whatever else it is you’re looking for.

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Searching Your Collection: 

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Browsing Your Collection: 

For those moments when you are struggling to place a certain track or name the artist behind it, the search bar comes into its own. Simply enter the name of the artist, track or video etc., and iTunes will bring up all relevant/matching items, which can be accessed with a simple click.

History & Lyrics: 

Press this link to see what’s coming up next, view your listening history and even review a song’s lyrics. Just play a song, press this button and select the lyrics tab. If they’re available for that song, they’re shown. Not every song has its lyrics offered in this way but more are added all the time.

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Here you can browse your entire music, film, TV shows, tones, podcasts and app collection. Your audio or video collection is instantly accessible within a few clicks. To browse through, simply scroll up or down to find the artist you are looking for.

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Favourites:  Click the heart icon

that appears here when you hover your pointer over a track to identify your favourite songs and albums. Your choice of favourites will automatically move to the top of your listings when you are viewing all content. Apple Music can use this information to refine and improve the suggestions it offers you for music you might also like.

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Current Track Listings: 

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Display & Other Options: 

This area of the display lists all the music tracks and videos linked to the album you have currently highlighted, complete with information on the running time, artist name, album title and a quick link to their back catalogue on the iTunes store; allowing you to easily add more to your collection.

From here you can select how you view your iTunes collection. You can view by Songs, Albums (as shown here), Artists, Composers or Genres. You can also reorder how your library is displayed within these categories, using the pull-downs offered when you click.

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Pop-Up Menu: 

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Playlists:  These are user-created

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Total Track Time:  Here you can

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Equaliser:  If you want to tweak

Click on this icon to get a pop-up menu that applies to the entire album. Use it to play that album next, interrupting what’s already playing, add it to a playlist, get info on the album, mark it as loved or dislike the album artwork from an online server and more.

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playlists which you can enjoy or edit in iTunes. You can group songs on a theme or mood, so there’s always something to suit your needs. These Playlists can be updated or edited at anytime.

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find the total number of tracks in the album or playlist you’re currently looking at, how much time it would take to play all of them and how much storage they take up. This is a great feature if you are running low on storage space. If this information is not shown, in the View menu, select Show Status Bar and the information bar at the foot of the window appears.

your sound with the iTunes Equaliser, summon it through the Windows menu or by pressing Alt-CMD-E.

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Importing Your CDs into iTunes

Before copying your CDs, set the import quality. Click on the iTunes menu at the top of the screen and select Preferences. Click on the General tab, then Import Settings. If you plan to listen to your music on a non-Apple music player, set Import Using: to MP3 Encoder.

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You see the track listing of the album appear. The progress bar at the top shows you each track being copied, while a green tick next to each track tells you which songs have already been copied successfully. It takes a few minutes to rip an entire CD to iTunes.

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Once you’ve successfully imported your album, don’t forget to click on the Eject button on the left side-bar. Your CD pops back out so you can store it safely away. The process of ripping a CD to iTunes doesn’t harm the disc in any way, so you can use it again if you wish.

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To begin copying your CDs onto your Mac, pop the CD into the disc slot, if it has one. If it doesn’t, you need to use an external optical drive like Apple’s USB SuperDrive, as shown here. You don’t have to stick with Apple though, as cheaper USB optical drives are available.

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Copyright.

A message pops up asking you if you want to import the album into your iTunes library. If you plan on copying a lot of albums in one go, it might be quicker to tick the box marked ‘Do not ask me again’, before clicking Yes.

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Remember that all recorded music, whether it was bought on CD or downloaded from iTunes Store, is protected by copyright laws. If you copy a CD into iTunes it’s OK to play it back for your own use on your home music system, listen to it on your iPod or on your car stereo, but you mustn’t give (or sell!) copies of it to anyone else. This includes uploading it to the Internet or making it available on file-sharing sites. If you get caught doing this you will face a hefty fine.

iTunes

The iTunes Store

Deleting Tracks & Albums. To delete a song or album, Right-Click, CTRL-Click or Two-Finger Click on it to get the contextual menu, and then select Delete from Library. If you bought the tracks from iTunes, you can download them again at a later date, at no cost. You can use the iTunes Store to buy music and TV shows and buy or rent the latest movies. Click on the Store link at the top of the iTunes window. You’re taken to the front page of the store, where you can decide what you want to buy, and go to the appropriate section.

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Album Art. If you’re not already signed in, click on the Account menu in the menu bar and select Sign in... Input your Apple ID and password in the appropriate fields, as requested. You can now navigate the store and purchase digital data for iTunes.

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If some of your albums lack the cover art associated with the CD, go to the File menu and select Library > Get Album Artwork. It’s added for as many of the albums as iTunes can find. You need to be signed into the iTunes Store and have an Internet connection for this to work.

The Visualizer. Use the pull-down in the top left corner to switch between media 3 categories such as Music, Films and TV Programmes. You can buy entire albums or individual tracks and preview songs by hovering over their title and clicking on the Play icon that appears.

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While your music is playing, go to View > Show Visualizer or tap CMD-T for a light show. In the View menu, under Visualizer, you can select from a number of options. Obviously, it works best if you view it full screen. Tap Escape to get back to the regular iTunes window.

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Apple Music The Streaming Service Apple Music is a new way to download and enjoy your favourite sounds. For a set monthly fee, you can listen to and download tracks from Apple’s library of over 40 million songs. It also has a live global radio station and a social platform for recording artists to connect with their fans. Here’s how to set up and use it in macOS High Sierra.

Setting Up Apple Music

To use Apple Music on your Mac, you must have a recent version of iTunes. If you haven’t, open the App Store and click the update. To use Apple Music, you must be running OS X 10.9.5 or later.

Click on the For You section at the top of the screen, as shown here. You don’t yet have an Apple Music account and so you’re invited to join, and get three months free. Click on the blue banner at the top.

On this screen, if you’ve already set up Apple Music on another device, click ‘Sign in’ in the top right corner of the screen. If not, click the white button to get an account and start your three month trial.

Choose between an individual or family membership. Family memberships use Apple’s Family Sharing and can cover up to six people. You might then be asked to sign into your iTunes account.

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Apple Music

Decide whether you require a password after 15 minutes or every time you make a purchase, then identify musical genres you like. When finished, click Next. Choose artists as instructed, then click Done.

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You’re now ready to use Apple Music. To register a nickname, click on the silhouette and then on your name in the pop up window. Choose a nickname; this nickname is used in several Apple Music features.

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Using Apple Music

Under the For You tab shown here, you can search for artists and songs available through Apple Music. Click on the Search Bar, then on the Apple Music tab. Make your search and your results are presented.

To identify an album you love, click on the three dots icon and select Love from the menu. To love a track, hover the mouse pointer over its name and click on the three dots icon. This improves future suggestions.

To follow an artist, Click on their name to get to their page, then on the three dots. In the pop-up menu, click Follow. You then see what they post. Click on the Radio tab for iTunes’ radio service.

To cancel your recurring subscription, click on the Account menu and select View My Account. Scroll down to Settings and look for Subscriptions. Click on Manage and switch off automatic renewal.

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The Contacts App For All Contact Details macOS High Sierra includes a useful digital address book that keeps all your important contact details organised and easily accessible, on individual contact cards. Keeping track of friends, family, work colleagues and associates has never been simpler. Here’s a quick run-down of the key features of the Contacts app and how to use them.

Managing and Maintaining Contacts

This guide shows you to how to add new contacts to your Contacts address book, edit existing ones and share a completed contact card with other people. To create a new contact card, click on the plus button in the bottom left of the current card. Select New Contact from the window that pops up and you’re given a blank card to fill in.

To add details, click on the field and then type in the information. After entering a phone number or address, another blank is offered, in case you want to add a second one. Click on the name of the detail (in blue) for a pop-up window that lets you change it. When you’re finished, click Done. To change or add information to a card you’ve completed, click Edit.

To add a photo to a contact card, which is then displayed against messages, incoming calls and emails from that contact, drag a picture onto the grey circle then crop and resize it to your requirements. You can also click on this circle or the Picture tab and navigate to a photo or default image, or even take a new one.

If you need a piece of information in a contact card that doesn’t currently have a blank field, again click on the Plus button at the foot of the screen. This time, select More Fields and then choose one of the options on offer, such as: Maiden Name, Nickname or Twitter name. This new field is then added to the card, for you to fill in.

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Contacts

You can organise your contact cards into groups. To show and hide the Groups panel, click on the View menu and select Show/Hide Groups. To add a contact to a group, simply drag it from the middle panel onto the group in question. A card can be in more than one group at a time, without being duplicated.

Smart Groups are groups with a set of rules. They automatically include every card that satisfies these rules. Go to File > New Smart Group to open one. Here we’re making a Smart Group for every contact that says ‘Xmas card’ in the notes. Great for sending out greetings cards at Christmas!

To set up a card from a company rather than an individual, or display a contact according to the person’s employer instead of his or her name, check the box marked Company at the top of the card. This reverses the name and company details of the contact, and indexes them according to the company name.

If you get an email, a message or other communication with contact details in them, you can automatically add them to Contacts. Just click on the address, phone number or other such information; then click on the down pointing chevron. A pop-up window invites you to add them to an existing contact or create a new one.

Sharing Contacts.

Using Contacts on iCloud.

If you want to share a contact card with someone else, click the icon showing a box with an up-pointing arrow and choose a sharing option. You can send the contact as a v-card by AirDrop, Mail, Messages and more. The person receiving it then double-clicks the v-card to add it to their own address book.

You can also access your contacts using a web browser on any computer, tablet or smartphone that’s connected to the Internet. Just go to www.icloud.com, enter your details and then click on Contacts. Only cards stored under iCloud in your Contacts app appear here, so bear this in mind when adding cards.

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The Calendar App For Planning Events The extremely useful Calendar app comes bundled with macOS High Sierra. You can use it to organise your life, adding events and reminders and syncing your calendars with your iOS device. It’s great for storing birthdays and anniversaries too, as you can set an event that recurs every year. Let’s take a look at the app and its features.

Changing the View

There are several ways to view your calendars and switching between these viewing options is simple. To move between Day, Week, Month and Year views, you use the corresponding buttons that appear in the top bar of the Calendar application.

The Year view shows you a complete year in a single window. Clicking on the title bar for any month takes you to the Month view for that month. Double-click on a specific day in either Year, Week or Month view to go to that day.

When you’re using the Day view, you can jump to a specific date by clicking on the date you wish to skip to in the calendar box at the top of the sidebar on the right-hand side of the Day view’s window. Events on this day are also listed in this sidebar.

Click the Today button in the top right corner to get to today’s calendar. This button is present regardless of which view button you’re using. The arrows either side take you forward or back one year, month, week or day, depending on the display.

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Calendar

Creating an Event

Searching Calendar

In Day and Week views you can start to add an event, by clicking the appropriate time slot. The hours are divided into quarter-hour sections for the purpose of adding events. Alternatively, for all-day events, just click the top bar.

Make your events more easily searchable by labelling them clearly and adding details in the notes section. The search function scans both event names and notes for keywords, so the more details you put in, the easier they are to find.

In Month view, you can double-click on the day of the event and enter a name and details in the pop-up window that appears, as shown here. These details can include start and end time and date, location and more.

Type any keywords into the search field to the right of the top bar of the Calendar window. All results appear instantly in a pane at the bottom of the main window. The more keywords you type in, the more unwanted results are filtered out.

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Creating a Backup. You can manually create a complete backup of all the calendars in your Calendars app. Open the File menu, choose Export and select Calendar Archive. You can rename the file and select a location to save it to. To load it again, use the Import option.

Clicking the ‘+’ button in the toolbar lets you create a quick event. Type in a title or brief description, day and or time and Calendar intelligently enters it at the appropriate place. For example, type ‘Dentist, 10th May, 11am’ and it’s added.

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Adding and Viewing Additional Calendars

The flexible, versatile Calendar app lets you add as many different calendars as you want, and use them for different things. To add a new calendar, open the File menu and select New Calendar. A box appears, prompting you to enter a name for your new calendar.

To see a complete list of all the calendars you’ve created in the Calendars app, click the Calendars button on the left side of the top bar of the Calendar window. A sidebar on the left of the window is revealed, showing all your current calendars.

To select which calendars you want to appear active in the main view, check or uncheck the boxes as appropriate. Each calendar is colour-coded, as are their events. Unchecked calendars aren’t erased; you can check them again later if you wish.

To change the calendar under which an event is listed, double-click the event to edit it then select a different calendar from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, right or CTRL-click the event, go to Calendar on the pop-up menu and select a new one.

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Calendar Preferences. You can change the way the Calendar app functions, using its preferences options.

To open the Calendar Preferences, use the Calendar menu as shown. Under the General tab, you can change the way the app presents itself, set when a day starts and ends, change the default calendar and even switch to a Chinese, Hebrew or Islamic calendar.

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Under the Accounts tab, you can disable calendars you don’t wish to be active on the Mac in question, and also choose how each calendar account refreshes. The Alerts tab lets you set default alert settings, and under ‘Advanced’ you can make more customisations.

Calendar

Sending Invitations via Calendar

iCloud Calendar

Double-click an event you created. In the pop-up window that appears, click Add Invitees and begin typing the name of a person in your Contacts whom you’d like to invite; or if the person isn’t in your contacts, enter their email address instead.

First of all, open System Preferences from the Apple menu as shown. Click on the iCloud preference pane, which is found on the left-hand side of the middle row, and in the next window, make sure the Calendar checkbox is ticked.

When you’ve finished adding all the people you intend to invite to your Calendar event, click on the Send button and an invitation is sent to everyone on the list. You can cancel invitations or send them to more of your contacts later if you wish.

To activate iCloud syncing on an iOS device, open Settings and in the left-hand column, tap iCloud. Make sure the Calendar switch is on and if it isn’t, switch it on to sync your calendars between the device in question and all other Macs and iOS devices with syncing on.

Your calendar entry shows who you’ve invited, and whether they’ve replied. If your invitee has an iCloud email, the event is automatically added to their Calendar app, and updated whenever you make edits.

Now, when you return to your Calendar app, all the entries you made on your iOS devices are also shown on your Mac, and vice versa. It’s a great way of keeping your computer and your tablet or smartphone calendars in sync.

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The Reminders App Never Forget Again Do you scribble long lists of things you need to do on pieces of paper, then lose them? If so, Reminders could be just what you need. With Reminders, you can maintain lists of important jobs and tasks, sync your reminders using iCloud, organise your reminders into separate lists, mark jobs as completed and even re-use completed tasks.

Open the Reminders app. From the opening screen, in the bottom left corner, click the plus icon to add a new reminders list. Choose a name for it too; here we’re making a decorating list, so it’s called simply ‘Decorating Jobs’. At the moment, it’s blank.

To add an item to your list, click the plus button in the top right or alternatively click the next available line on the list. Type whatever it is you need to be reminded about. Each item on your list has a blank circle to the left. Click this when it’s completed.

By default, completed tasks disappear but if you scroll to the top of the list, there’s an option to Show or Hide the jobs you’ve checked off as done: see the link, top right. With completed tasks showing, you can click on the circle to mark it as uncompleted again.

When you’ve a few lists in the left-hand column, you can rearrange them by dragging them into a new order. You can also right-click on a list to change the colour of the title, set all reminders as completed, change the name of the list or delete it completely.

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The Reminders App

You can schedule a reminder to activate at a certain time and date, just the thing if you have an important meeting arranged, or an appointment to keep. Hover over the item you wish to schedule and click the ‘i’ icon that appears to its right.

You can then set the reminder to trigger on a certain day and at a set time. You can also set it to recur every day, week, month, year or at a custom interval. Click Done when finished. Reminders that are scheduled in this way also appear in your Scheduled list.

You can also set a reminder to trigger when you enter or leave a specific location. Click the ‘i’, then At a Location. Enter the location where you want it to trigger (this is easier if it’s in your Contacts app), then click Arrive or Leave, depending on your needs.

Using the ‘i’ icon, you can set a priority for a reminder: High, Medium, Low or None. You can also add useful notes, which appear under the reminder name as shown here. When you search your notes using the top left search field, these notes are also searched.

You can sync your Reminders lists with your other Apple gear using iCloud. On a Mac, open the System Preferences, then open the iCloud pane. Make sure Reminders is checked. On an iOS device, open Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud and switch on Reminders.

Only lists created in your iCloud account are synced between Macs and iOS devices. To move a list, create a new list in the iCloud section, then go back to the list you want to move. Type CMD-A to select all the reminders, then drag and drop them into the new one.

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The Messages App For On-screen Chats Messages makes it easy to communicate with other Mac and iOS users (iPod touch, iPad mini, iPhone or iPad), as well as share files and participate in group chats: all for free and all from your Mac. Keeping in touch means learning how to use the Messages app on the Mac, so let’s take a look at how to use this handy app.

Setting Up Messages

When you first open Messages, you might need to sign in with your Apple ID. If you’re not asked to do so, you’re already signed in. Open Messages and select Preferences from the Messages menu in the top bar. Alternatively, press CMD-comma on your keyboard. Either way, the Preferences window appears.

Click the Accounts button and ensure that the email address associated with your Apple ID is enabled. If it isn’t, click the plus icon at the foot of the left-hand column and set it up. You can set more than one email address and phone number if you wish, so messages sent to any of these addresses or numbers are received on your Mac.

Click on the General button in the left-hand corner of the top bar in the preferences window to select the text size and other settings you’d like to use for messages. Most of the options you can see here are self-explanatory, so it’s fairly easy to customise the Messages app to suit your needs and wishes.

To send Messages directly from the Notifications panel, open System Preferences and select Extensions. Select Today in the left-hand column, and make sure Social is checked. Now, when you open your Notifications panel, you can post to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Messages, as shown here.

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Messages

Start a Conversation

To start a new message, click on the pencil and paper icon at the top of the left-hand panel. A new message window opens, which is currently blank. Type the email address, phone number or name (if they’re in your Contacts app) of the person you want to message in the To field at the top.

Type your message into the text field at the bottom of the main window. Click on the smiling face on the right-hand side of the text field to add an emoticon to your message. Messages to other iOS users are shown in blue. If you’re messaging someone who doesn’t use an Apple device, your messages are shown in green.

To add pictures, videos and other files to a message, drag and drop them into the field where you type your text. You can then type a message and send it with the attachment. You can switch between conversations by clicking on the recipient’s name in the left-hand panel; your conversation with that person appears on the right.

You can initiate a group chat by adding more than one name to the To field in a new message. Name a group chat by clicking on the Details link in the top right and adding a title. From here, you can also silence the chat by checking Do Not Disturb or leave it using the Leave This Conversation link.

Emoticons & URLs.

Messages in iCloud.

Emoticons sent on their own appear large. Click and hold on a human emoticon and you’re offered skin tones. When a URL is sent on its own, it’s automatically turned into a rich link in which you see the website’s title and a picture.

iCloud syncing means your messages are visible on all your Apple devices, signed into your iCloud account. To activate this feature, open Messages’ Preferences (from the Messages top bar menu), click Accounts and tick Enable Messages on iCloud.

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The iBooks App Buy and Read eBooks The eBook revolution is going strong and with the iBooks app, you can read your electronic books on your Mac as well as your iPad, iPhone or your regular eReader. Here is a guide to buying, sampling and reading electronic literature on your trusty computer as well as organising your eBook library on your Mac.

Setting Up iBooks

Launch the iBooks app and click on Get Started. You’re asked to sign in using your Apple ID. Do so. If you need to sign in with another account at a later date, use the Sign In/Out option in the Store drop-down menu in the top bar.

If you’re already an iBooks user on your iPad or iPhone, you can access your books by clicking the All Books tab in the top left of this pane. From this link you’re taken to your complete iBooks library located on iCloud.

By clicking on the iCloud icon in the top right corner of a book, you download it to your Mac where it can be read. Once you’ve downloaded your picks, you can change how you view them based on the five options at the top of this pane.

The Authors and Category views organise your iBooks by genre and writer. The List option shows all titles as text only. Collections lets you view your iBooks by format including PDFs, and All Books shows your complete collection, whatever their format or origin.

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iBooks

Making Purchases Using iBooks

First of all, click on the iBooks Store link, in the top left corner of the main pane. You have four viewing options to choose from. The standard landing page is the Featured option, which shows the latest releases by genre.

The Top Charts link offers you the best-selling paid and free iBooks currently available. Alternatively, enter a title or author into the search bar on the top right. Lastly, you can view all currently available titles from the complete A-Z listings of authors on the left.

When you’ve made your selection, click on the cover to be taken to the publication’s home page. Here you can download the full title or a short free sample. If you opt for the free sample it automatically downloads, but the full purchase requires you to log in with your Apple ID.

Once your purchase has downloaded, the purchase options are replaced with a Read button. Click this to begin reading your iBook. To make another purchase or browse the iBooks Store, click the left-pointing arrow in the top left corner or click one of the search options.

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Adding PDFs to iBooks. You can quickly and easily copy PDF documents onto your Mac and into the iBooks app, and sync them using your iCloud account.

Open up iBooks on your Mac and select Add to Library from the File menu. From here, open the folder containing the PDF files you wish to add to iBooks.

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Select Books from your iBooks Library and you now see these PDF files that you just added to your collection, which can be viewed just as if they were purchased iBooks.

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Viewing Titles in iBooks

To open an iBook, go to your Library and click on the thumbnail of the cover of the title you wish to read. It zooms out and automatically opens at the start of the book, or at the last page you read to if you’ve already started it.

Using your mouse or trackpad, or the slider at the foot of the window, navigate through the pages as you read. You can also skip back to the title’s table of contents using the middle icon in the top left. Return to the iBooks window by clicking the book icon in the far left.

Using the mouse or trackpad, click and hold the cursor and drag it over a portion of text, or double-click on a word to select it. This brings up an options window where you can add a note, highlight the text or underline it in red.

These notes are stored within the eBook itself and can be viewed in a pop-up column by clicking on the third icon on the top left of the pane. A second click returns you to the standard reading format, so you can continue to enjoy your book.

Returning to the highlight options pop-up menu, click More for a second page of options. From here you can look up the word using the dictionary, find other examples of its use in the book, search the web for it or share it.

Another option from the pop-up menu linked to highlighted text is the ability to have any highlighted text spoken to you via the Mac’s own speech software. Simply highlight the section you want to hear and click on the Start Speaking link.

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iBooks

By clicking on the first icon on the top right, the icon showing the two sizes of the ‘A’ character on it, you bring up a menu containing various options to change the appearance of the iBook, from font size to background colour.

The next option is Search, represented by the magnifying glass icon. Using this you can search for all references to a name or word in the entire publication. The results appear below the search bar and can be viewed by scrolling.

The final option is Bookmark. Click it to place a bookmark on the current page, which can be accessed by clicking the down-pointing icon, which shows all of your recent and current bookmarks for this iBook.

Some iBooks have integrated content such as images and videos presented within their pages. These are viewed by following the specific instructions given by the iBook title in question, such as pressing the Play button on video clips.

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Sharing eBooks and Using the iBooks Wish List. When you find a title in the iBooks Store that you wish to share with a friend, or if you are a little short on funds and want to add the title to your Wish List to remind you at a later date, you can use the following share feature. When you are on a title’s home page, notice the small downward-pointing arrow to the right of the price. Click on this arrow to bring up a small menu containing links to your sharing options; email, Facebook etc. You can also use the Add to Wish List link which will add this title to your buy it later list. Your Wish List is viewable from the right panel on the Featured Home screen. Remove a title by hovering the pointer over it, then clicking on the cross icon that appears in the top left corner of the book.

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The FaceTime App Video Calls on a Mac With FaceTime, you can video chat between devices, including iPhones, iPads and of course your Mac. With the FaceTime camera you can use your Mac as a video phone to chat face-to-face with anyone, no matter where they are, as long as you both have an Apple device with an Internet connection. Here’s how to use FaceTime.

Using the FaceTime Camera. Notebook Macs and the iMac have built-in front-facing FaceTime cameras mounted just above the screen, as you can see on the iMac shown here. It’s perfect for video chatting. Using FaceTime and your Mac’s built-in camera for video chat is, as always, very easy. All you need is your Mac, an active Wi-Fi connection, an email address and your Apple ID. Of course you also need the FaceTime app, but that’s pre-installed on your new Mac, and should already be on your Dock. It’s the green square icon with a movie camera on it, badged with a telephone receiver on a white circle. Click on this icon to open the FaceTime application.

Click on the FaceTime app to launch the program. It should start straight away, and you’ll see your own face on the screen, as well as a panel inviting you to log in with your Apple ID. Type in your Apple ID password and click OK.

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Next you’ll need to type in your email address. This is the address that people can use through the FaceTime app to contact you. There will be a brief pause while FaceTime verifies your email address. You only have to do this the first time you use the app, then you’re ready to go.

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FaceTime

Before you make a video call, it’s a good idea to make sure whoever you’re calling can see you properly. Using the camera view shown here, make sure there are no distracting bright lights behind you and your face is well lit. You don’t need to light up like a movie studio, but turning on a desk light in a dim room could help.

Making a FaceTime call is simplicity itself. Just look up the person you want to call in your Contacts list, scroll down and you find the FaceTime call button. If the person in question isn’t in your Contacts app, you can call them by typing their name, email address or phone number in the field provided and pressing Return.

Accepting a call in FaceTime is also extremely simple. When you receive a call, the app automatically opens and you’re given several options. These are Accept or Decline the call, and under the chevron, Remind me in five minutes, 15 minutes or an hour, or Reply with Message. You also see your camera view in a small inset window.

Whilst you’re in the call you can mute the microphone by hovering your pointer over the picture and clicking the icon that appears at the bottom. Hover over the inset video feed of yourself and you can toggle between landscape and portrait modes. Take a Live Photo with the button at the bottom left. To end the call click on the red button.

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FaceTime Audio Calls. It’s also possible to make audio only FaceTime calls. Open the FaceTime app and click on the Audio tab in the top left. If your camera is on, you still see your picture for now. With Audio selected, you should then either choose one of the recent numbers listed in the left-hand column, type a name, email or telephone number in the field at the top of the left-hand column or tap the plus sign on the right-hand side of this field to choose someone from your Contacts to call. You then initiate an audio only call from your Mac. If your Mac is on the same iCloud network as your iPhone, you can make FaceTime audio calls to landlines and non-Apple phones. See our tutorials on Continuity and Handoff for more information on this feature.

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The Notes App To Store Your Jottings Notes is a convenient way to jot down your thoughts and ideas. As the name suggests, it’s a virtual notepad that’s very simple to use. It’s easily edited and fully searchable, meaning that these notes are hard to lose and even harder to do without, and you can sync them using iCloud. Here’s how to make the most of the amazing Notes app.

Creating, Editing and Sharing Notes

To create a new note, first of all, click on the pen-and-paper symbol in the top left corner of the main pane of the Notes window. A new blank note appears. Start typing your note. The first line of a new note is used as its title in the notes list, so bear this in mind.

Your notes are listed in the left-hand pane. Click on a note to open it. To change the font, or use bold, underline or italicise, select the text and right-click or CTRL-click for a menu; these options are found under Fonts. To attach an image, simply drag it onto the note.

To search notes, start typing keywords into the search field at the top of the left-hand frame. The search field searches throughout your notes, so you can type any text string in here that you remember entering in the note you’re looking for: it doesn’t have to be the title you search for.

To delete a note, open it and use the Delete option in the Edit menu the dustbin button in the toolbar or swipe it left and click the dustbin. Deleted notes are kept in the Recently Deleted folder for 30 days. To email a note or share it in Messages, click on the Share button.

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Notes

Using Folders

There are several ways to create a new folder in your sidebar. Press CMD-N, use the New Folder in the File menu or press the New Folder link in the bottom left corner . Notes created in the iCloud section are stored on your iCloud and can be synced with other Apple devices.

Highlight a folder by clicking on it to view all the notes in that folder. Alternatively, click on the All option at the top of each category to list every note stored on your Mac or your iCloud account or if applicable, those created using another compatible service like Google Drive.

Edit the name of an existing folder by clicking on it to highlight it, then clicking again to turn it into a text field as shown. You can then type in your new name. A folder can be called anything you like and is a great way of organising your notes into groups such as Work, School and more.

If you’re syncing your notes with iCloud, they sync with other Macs and iOS devices logged into the same iCloud account. In System Preferences, click on iCloud and then make sure Notes is ticked. This is useful if you use an iPhone, as the note is always in your pocket.

The Sidebar.

Notes Online.

Click on the icon immediately to the right of the gumdrop buttons to show and hide the sidebar. Most users will want the sidebar open, as it gives access to your folders but if your screen space is tight and you need to review a big note, you can close it for a while.

You can review your iCloud notes from any computer or mobile device with Internet access and a web browser. Just go to www.icloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID, then click on the Notes option. All your iCloud synced notes are there.

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Advanced Notes Features

You can turn any list into a handy checklist. Make a list in the usual way, then highlight the text. Click on the toolbar icon that shows a tick in a circle. Your list becomes a checklist, with an empty circle in front of each item. Tap a circle to tick and untick it.

Click on the grid icon to the right of the lock for a table. You can type in each of the table’s cells. Click on a row or column, then the small icon that appears and drag it to move. Click the chevron in a highlighted row or column to delete it or add another.

You can attach photographs to your Notes and for advanced users, there’s a Photo Browser from which to select them. Choose Photo Browser from the Window menu in the top bar to open it and then drag photos from the browser into your notes.

There’s also an Attachments Browser. Click on the button with four squares to be taken to this screen, where you can opt to view attachments contained in your notes by type. Right-click on an attachment to open it or go to its respective note.

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Password-protect a Note.

If you make a private note you don’t want others to read, you can lock it with a password. If you’re syncing that note using iCloud, it’s locked on your other devices too. First, open the note, click the Lock icon and select Lock Note.

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You’re asked to set up a Notes password or type it if you already have one. The note is locked. A lock icon appears next to its name and it can only be opened with the password. You can close all locked notes or remove a lock from a note using the Lock button in the toolbar.

Notes

To attach documents, web sites, emails and other such data to a note, click on the Share icon in the app in question and select Notes. You can add it to an existing note or start a new one. Audio and video tracks can now be played within the note too.

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You can review PDFs from within notes too and even where an attached document cannot be utilised in the note itself, you can still open the attachment directly from the app. They’re much more clearly displayed in the note.

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Pinned Notes. A new feature added for High Sierra is the ability to pin a note, so it always appears at the top of your list, regardless of how it’s sorted. To do this, swipe the note right and click the Pin icon. To unpin a note, repeat this step.

To format a piece of text, highlight it then press the two As icon. In the pop-up window, you can turn a piece of text into a heading or title, make a numbered list and more. You can also highlight a word or phrase and use CMD-I, B or U to make it Italic, Bold or Underlined respectively.

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Collaborative Notes.

Collaborative Notes was introduced with Sierra and iOS 10. To make a note collaborative (able to be edited by more than one person), open it and click on the button with a head and a plus sign on it. You can click on it again to untick it if you wish.

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Choose the method by which you want to send it, enter their details and they’re sent an invitation. When they accept, you can see and edit the note. This is only possible if both parties are using macOS High Sierra or iOS 10 or later.

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The Maps App For Directions and More Maps is the hub for your travel plans. From finding the quickest route to shops by avoiding the worst traffic, to planning a trip around the world, the uses and depth of features the Maps app has to offer is amazing. You can even see major cities in glorious 3D or take a spectacular flyover tour. So let’s take a look at it.

Finding Places with Maps

To find your current location, click the arrow icon left of the search field. The map zooms to your current whereabouts. To search for a specific location, type the address, postcode or zip code or road name into the search field. Possible matches are shown as you type.

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You can search for a business by entering the business name or type, for example ‘pizza delivery’, into the search field. Pins appear on the map indicating all matching businesses in the area. To get more information, click on a pin, then on the ‘i’ button next to the name.

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Drop a Pin. To add a pin to your map, right-click and choose Drop Pin. A pin is placed where you clicked, giving access to an information box like the one shown here. To remove the pin, right-click on it and choose Remove Pin.

To change the view, click one of the options at the top of the pane. The options are: Map, which displays a simple graphical map; Transit, which shows public transport options; and Satellite, which displays a photographic map.

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Maps

Route Planning Explained

To get directions, click the Directions button and enter start and finish points. Select your mode of transport: car, on foot or public transport. Alternatively, click on a pinned location, then click on the small car icon next to the name. You’re shown a route to your destination.

Maps calculates the best route, based on your chosen transport. It’s displayed on the map as a blue line. The distance and travel time are also offered. If alternative routes are available, they’re shown as light blue lines. Switch between routes by clicking on a light blue line.

When you’ve chosen a route, click on Details in the side bar, under the route you’ve picked. You can then view a written step-by-step breakdown of the journey. Click any of these points to be taken to that point on the route.

If there are alternative branches leading off your chosen route, they’re displayed as lighter blue lines once more. Again, you can opt to follow these alternative routes by clicking on them, causing Maps to change your route.

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Getting and Using Traffic Information. When on a road journey, there’s nothing worse than getting caught up in a traffic jam or running into major roadworks. Luckily, Maps covers that one too. You can add or remove realtime traffic information in the View menu at the top of the screen. Just select Show/Hide Traffic. When traffic information is turned on, closed roads are shown as no-entry signs, roadworks as road men and accidents as a red sign. Click on one of these indicators for more details, including possible length of delays and for how long the works is likely to continue. Where traffic is heavier than usual, an orange line is added on the road. If it’s very heavy, a red line is used.

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Viewing Maps in 3D

To get the best effect when viewing the maps in 3D, you need to switch to Satellite view. You can show or hide the labels such as the street names and feature locations using the View top-bar menu. Just select Show/Hide Labels.

To now switch to 3D view, click the 3D button in the centre of the view controls in the bottom-right corner of the map screen. The camera angle shifts when you do this, but if you’re zoomed out, you’ll hardly notice any difference.

Zoom in and you start to see contours, hills and valleys rendered before your very eyes. It’s fun looking at famous buildings in the 3D mode too. The 3D feature can slow things down if you are using a slow Wi-Fi connection, but not by much.

You can use trackpad gestures such as pinch in and out to zoom and twist to rotate the camera, and see different parts of buildings and features. You can also tilt the camera by clicking and holding the 3D button, then dragging up and down to change the viewing angle.

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3D Flyover Tours.

Some of the world’s major cities offer Flyover Tours. To start a 3D Flyover Tour first search for a city by name. Click on the pin that appears, then the ‘i’ icon in the pop-up window. In the next window, shown here, click Flyover Tour.

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The 3D camera flies over major features and attractions, showing them off in great detail. What you’re looking at is indicated in a panel at the foot of the Maps window. To end a Flyover Tour, click the End link also found in this panel.

Maps

Customising the Maps App

Location Aware

Adding and Removing Favorites in Maps

Sharing Routes

Using Maps Favorites

If Maps isn’t authorised to access your location, you get a message. Several of the options covered in this tutorial don’t work unless you authorise them. Click Open Privacy Settings, then the lock in the bottom left corner and enter your admin password. In the right-hand panel, tick Maps.

Having selected your choice of route, you can share it via social media or email, or send directly to other macOS, OS X or iOS devices. The recipient receives a message with a link which, when accessed, opens the Maps app to display the route.

To bookmark a location, click on the Share link in the toolbar and select Add to Favorites; or click on a pin, then on the ‘i’ icon and click on Add to Favorites. To remove a Favorite, in the window showing the list of Favorites, click on the Edit button and click on the ‘X’ icon to delete.

To review your Favorites, click in the Search field at the top of the Maps window, and then select Favorites from the menu that pops up. Your Favorites are listed as pins. You can then drag these pins into the search field, or the start and end points in the Directions sidebar.

Changing the View. Switch between the viewing options available to you using the buttons found in the top right corner, or by using the View menu.

Map: This view is similar to your standard

hand drawn Ordinance Survey (OS) map style It’s the easiest way to find your directions.

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Satellite: An aerial view, which you can

zoom in and out. A View menu option lets you show or hide the labels such as street names.

Transit: Public transport options are added

in this view. It’s not available everywhere yet, but more locations are being added over time.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

The Preview App View Images and More Preview is a multi-purpose file viewer that also lets you edit and manage your image files. You can annotate an image, rotate it should it be the wrong way up and even sign it using a pre-prepared digital signature. It can’t replace a full-on graphics editor like Photoshop, but it’s great for most tasks. Here’s a guide to its great features.

Preview Basics

By default, Preview isn’t found in the Dock but it’s a good idea to put it there, so you can open files in Preview by dragging them onto its Dock icon as shown in the picture here. It can open pictures, documents, PDF files and more.

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If you open several documents at once or a document such as a PDF with multiple pages, you can use the sidebar. This can show documents or pages as thumbnails or as a list. Click on the Sidebar button for options.

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Highlight Documents. If your PDF document has selectable text, you can also highlight passages in Preview, as well as underlining and crossing it out. Just click on the highlighter button, then select the portion of text you wish to alter. You can change the colour of the highlighter or opt for underlining or crossing out using the menu next to the button.

You can zoom into or out of a document using the magnifying glass buttons. Alternatively, hold CMD and tap the plus or minus buttons on your keyboard. The View pull-down menu gives options like Actual Size and Zoom to Fit.

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Preview

Editing Images

Filling In and Signing Forms. These days, documents are often sent digitally instead of posted, You can fill in PDFs from Preview, including your signature.

If your image isn’t the right way up, you can rotate it using the Rotate button, the one with the rectangle and an arrow on it. The button next to this, showing a pen, reveals and conceals your markup tools, shown open here.

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Two selection tools are available. The one on the left (lasso tool) selects a portion of the image in a rectangular, elliptical or other shape. The wand tool lets you auto select a background or object. After making a selection, you can crop the image using the Tools pull-down menu.

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You can add a speech bubble with the Shapes menu, and caption it with the text button; click the text button to add a text window, drag it to wherever you want on the picture and type over the default text. Change the font, text size and more with the formatting menu on the right.

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First open your tools. Click on the type tool, left-hand side of the tools strip, click where you want to type, and type away. You can edit the size and colour of your text as explained earlier. Your typing is preserved when you save the PDF, so you can return it by email.

You can add your own signature to forms. First, sign your name on a white piece of paper. Then click on the Signature button as shown and follow the instructions to store your signature as a digital copy. When it’s shown in the window like this, tap the Done button.

To add your signature to a form, click on the signature button for a pop-up menu and select it. It appears on your form; move it into place and resize to fit. You can also use this menu (as shown) to delete existing signatures or add more to your digital collection.

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Using the Apps that Came with Your Mac

The App Store App To Buy Mac Software The App Store is the best place to download applications for your Mac. It’s quick and secure, and has an easy-to-use interface so you can find all those obscure apps and utilities you’ve been wondering about. There’s some great software out there, and it’s all for your Mac. Here’s how to find, purchase and download it in the App Store. To open the App Store, click the Apple menu and select App Store. Alternatively, you can use the Sierra Launchpad or the App Store icon found in the Dock.

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The Purchased Icon: This button lets you look

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The Updates Icon: Click here to see if there

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Navigation Buttons: The two chevrons shown

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Search Bar: If you know the name of the

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Quick Links: These are mostly administration

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Application List: There’s some great links if

at a list of all the apps you’ve previously purchased. If a purchased app isn’t currently installed on your Mac, you can download and install it from here without paying for it again. You must be signed in to your App Store account to access this page.

are any updates available for your installed apps purchased from the App Store. Updates can fix bugs and bring new features, so it’s worth updating regularly.

here take you forward or backward through your browsing history, just like the navigation buttons found in Safari.

application you’re looking for, type it here to go straight to it. Suggestions are offered as you type; click on one to select it.

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The Featured Icon:  Press this button to take a

look at featured apps; that is, ones Apple has highlighted as especially worth your attention. These apps are often those that will showcase your Mac and the power it offers you and therefore a good place to start.

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The Top Charts Icon:  What apps are popular

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The Categories Icon: Looking for a game, a

among Mac owners? This button takes you to the charts, both paid-for and free. As free apps often offer in-app purchases, their download buttons are now labelled ‘Get’ instead of ‘Free’ as they were before.

developer tool, or a utility? Click on this button to organise the App Store into useful categories, making it easier to find what you’re looking for.

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links, account details, support and so on. It’s here you sign into your account, if you’re not already signed in. Just click on Sign In and enter your Apple ID and password. You can also check to ensure that all of your details are correct if you are experiencing any issues with payment etc.

you’re new to the Mac. Various starter packs, popular apps, even free apps are available through these links. It also contains a full catalogue of application types via a drop-down list. Here you can skip directly to the genre of app you are looking for, with the most popular shown in the same manner as the home page.

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New & Popular Items: New apps will appear

here, as well as the most popular. A good place to start if you’re just browsing or if you haven’t paid the App Store a visit in a while.

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The App Store

Install Applications.

View Installed Apps.

Auto App Updates.

When you’ve found an application on the App Store that you want to install, click on its icon to open the details page. To install the app, simply click the price button in the upper left, followed by the Install button that replaces it, then input your Apple ID.

If you want to review the items you’ve already bought from the App Store, click the Purchased icon at the top of the window. You can also uninstall apps from here. Hover the mouse over each app and an ‘x’ appears at the right side; click it to start the uninstall process.

You can update your apps in the background, removing the need to check for app updates manually. To activate this very useful addition, open the System Preferences from the Apple menu and activate the Download Newly Available Updates in the Background option.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

T

here’s more to the Mac than its apps. Its operating system, macOS, has some amazing built-in features that really help you take your computing to

the next level. In this section, we show you how to use advanced functionality such as iCloud, Handoff, Continuity, Mission Control, Time Machine and Siri.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Contents 106 Top Tips – For Your Mac

106 The Photo Booth App



107 AirDrop File Transfer



107 Using Bluetooth



108 The Quick Look Tool



111 Apple Pay on Your Mac



112 Calculator Features



113 Using TextEdit

114 System Preferences – And How to Use Them 120 The iCloud Service – For Cloud Computing 126 iCloud Desktop – Documents & Folders 127 Mission Control – Manage Your Desktop 128 Using Extensions – On a Web Browser 130 Split View Screens – And What They Do 132 External Optical Drives – And the DVD Player App 134 New User Accounts – How to Use Them 136 Automator Assistant – And How it Works 138 Closed Clamshell Mode – On Your Mac Notebook 140 The Sharing Options – A Regular Mac Feature 142 Home Sharing – From Your Mac 144 Family Sharing – With Your Apple Devices 146 The Handoff Feature – For macOS and iOS 148 The Continuity Feature – For macOS and iOS 151 Universal Clipboard – For macOS and iOS 152 Using Time Machine – To Back Up and Restore 154 Multi-use Touch Bar – On Your MacBook Pro 158 The Siri Feature – The Mac’s Digital PA 160 Auto Save Feature – On Your Mac 162 The App Switcher – Speeds Your Workflow 163 Picture in Picture – A Space Saving Feature

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Top Tips For Your Mac It’s amazing what you can do with your Mac. In this feature, we bring you some small tips and tricks to help improve your computing experience. Learn about wireless connectivity with Bluetooth and AirDrop, find out how to hide the menu bar, use an app in Full Screen Mode and more. It’s all right here at your fingertips.

The Photo Booth App. 1

This often overlooked application is great for taking selfies, maybe for social media avatars. Open Photo Booth and you can see three buttons in the bottom left corner. They are: (left to right) take four photos in quick succession; take a photo; and make a video. Click the middle one.

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To make a video, click on the video button. Click the red button (showing a camcorder) to start recording. When finished, click again to end recording. To view a picture or video in the main window, click on it. Click on the ‘x’ that appears in its top left corner to delete it.

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To take a photo, click the red button in the middle. There’s a three second countdown before the shutter clicks, to give you time to strike the perfect pose. You can turn the countdown off in Photo Booth’s settings. The picture’s thumbnail appears at the foot of the screen.

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To add an effect, click the Effects button. Use the arrows that appear to the left and right to view the effects and when you find one you like, click on it. To add a backdrop, go to the last page of effects, drag an image or video into a blank backdrop, then select it.

Top Tips For Your Mac

AirDrop File Transfer.

Using Bluetooth.

AirDrop is available from the sidebar in Finder windows, from the Share menu and in Finder, via the Go pull-down menu. If it’s not there, your Mac may be too old for AirDrop. On an iOS device, you AirDrop through the Share menu. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth must be on.

Bluetooth is used to pair your Mac with devices such as speakers, headphones, keyboards and mice, so data can be transferred between them. First, the item you wish to pair with must be put into Pairing Mode. To do this, follow the manufacturer’s instructions, as supplied.

On your Mac, you can drag and drop a file onto a nearby device shown in the AirDrop window or click on it after selecting AirDrop from a Share menu. Remember, the two devices have to be no more than around 30 feet apart. The person you sent it to is then offered the file.

Open the Bluetooth preferences from the System Preferences or Bluetooth menulet. The item you’re trying to pair with should be shown here, along with other devices that are already paired. Click on its Connect button to pair the device with your Mac.

When someone sends you a file using AirDrop, you can accept or reject it. If you accept it, it’s saved to your Downloads folder. Note: to use AirDrop, the two devices (Macs or iOS devices) must be on the same wireless network but don’t need to be signed into the same Apple ID.

A paired device automatically connects with your Mac when you switch it on; you don’t have to pair it again. To unpair a device, open Bluetooth preferences again and click on the item you wish to unpair. Click on the ‘X’ to its right and it’s unpaired and removed from the list.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

The Quick Look Tool. 1

Quick Look lets you inspect a document or image without actually opening it. To use Quick Look, click on a file or folder in Finder to highlight it and then press the Space Bar. A window opens showing a large-sized preview of that file. Tap Space again to close it.

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Another way to use Quick Look is to highlight a group of files before pressing Space. The Quick Look window gains two extra controls: chevrons to cycle through the files and a button to look at thumbnails of them all. You can also cycle through them with the arrow keys.

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After opening a Quick Look window, you can share the file using the Share Icon (the square with the up-pointing arrow) or open it in its native app using the Open With button. The sharing options, and the app in which the file opens, depends on the file you’re previewing.

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Press the button with four squares on it (found in the top left corner) to see all the selected files as thumbnails. You can then click on one of them to view that particular file in Quick Look. The Sharing and Open buttons only appear when a single file is viewed.

Hide Menu Bar.

You can make your menu bar, the strip along the top of the screen, vanish until it’s needed. First, go to System Preferences > General. Check the box labelled ‘Automatically hide and show the menu bar’. It’s at the top of the window, the second checkbox down.

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The menu bar immediately disappears, leaving the top of your screen blank. It remains hidden until you drag your pointer to the top of the screen, at which time it’s revealed again. Do this with the Dock too and you can work on a completely empty desktop.

Top Tips For Your Mac

Tabbed Finder Windows.

To open a new tab in an open Finder window, hold the CMD key on the keyboard and then click on a folder in the left sidebar or in any other location on your Mac. A new tab opens within the Finder window. To switch between finder tabs, click the tab you want to see.

To close a tab, run the cursor over it and click on the ‘X’ that appears. To copy files between tabs, select the file(s) you wish to move and then drag them onto the tab representing the window to which you wish to move them. It opens, allowing you to drop the files therein.

Using Colour Coding Tags.

Click on the file you want to tag. With the file selected, click on the Tag icon in the toolbar to open a drop-down menu with a selection of tags. Click the colour you wish to use and hit Return. Alternatively, right-click on the file and select the tag from the pop-up.

An icon appears beside your chosen file. You can also create your own coding using a unique reference entered in the Tag window. To view all of the files you’ve tagged in that colour, click on the colour you chose from the Tags menu on the left sidebar of the Finder Window.

Tabbed Application Windows.

You can organise app windows into tabs, just like Safari. It works for any app that allows multiple windows. To open a new tab, use the File menu or press CMD-T. You can now have open a series of tabs in the same window, instead of a series of space hogging windows.

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If you already have multiple windows open, you can merge them by opening the Window menu and selecting Merge All Windows. This works in any app that allows multiple windows. Developers do not need to update their software to take advantage of this feature, it simply works.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Full Screen Windows. 1

There are three different ways to take an app or window into full-screen mode. You can click on the green button in the top left corner, choose Enter Full Screen from the View menu or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-CMD-F. It then expands to fill the entire screen.

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You can have multiple apps open in full-screen mode and switch between them in this way. If you also want to add a new regular desktop, on which you can have several open app windows, open Mission Control and click on the Plus sign in the top right corner.

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A full-screen app is shown on a new desktop. Move between desktops by swiping left and right on a trackpad with three fingers, on a Magic Mouse with two fingers or Ctrl-Arrow on a keyboard. Click on a Dock app and you’re taken straight to the desktop on which it resides.

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To leave full screen mode, drag the pointer to the top of the screen, where the menu bar is revealed. Click on the green gumdrop button. Alternatively, press Esc on the keyboard or Ctrl-CMD-F. If you quit a full-screen app, the desktop on which it resides disappears.

Social Network Integration.

Launch System Preferences and open the Internet Accounts pane. From the list, click on the social network you wish to integrate, such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. A pop-up invites you to enter your username and password for the account in question. Do so and press Next.

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You’re shown an information sheet explaining what happens when you sign in with that particular social media account. If you’re happy to do so, click Sign In. The social network account is integrated with your Mac and you can (for example) post to it through the Share icon.

Top Tips For Your Mac

Apple Pay on Your Mac. 1

First you need to allow Safari to check for Apple Pay data on websites. In Safari, open Preferences (in the Safari top-bar menu), and click the Privacy tab. At the bottom of this window, check the Apple Pay box.

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You also need to set up your iPhone for Apple Pay payments on your Mac. Launch the Settings app and tap Wallet & Apple Pay. If you haven’t already added payment cards to Apple Pay, tap the Add Credit or Debit Card link, and follow the on-screen instructions to add your payment cards for Apple Pay. You can add cards with your iPhone’s camera or manually, by typing their numbers. You must then verify them by typing in a code sent to your email address. When you’re done, they’re activated and ready for Apple Pay. Make sure the switch marked ‘Allow Payments on Mac’ is switched to On.

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When you’re shopping online, look for the Apple Pay logo at the checkout. When you see it, you can click on the Apple Pay logo and follow the on-screen instructions to finish your payment using an Apple Watch or iPhone.

To use Apple Pay on a Mac, you need a MacBook Pro with Touch ID or an iPhone. To allow Safari to check for Apple Pay data on websites, in Safari, open Preferences (in the Safari top bar menu) and click the Privacy tab. At the bottom of this window, check the Apple Pay box.

Type Like an iPhone.

QuickType for Mac.

When you type on an iPhone or an iPad, capitals are automatically added and a double-tap on the Space Bar gives you a full stop. If you want this on your Mac, open System Preferences > Keyboard and click the Text tab. These familiar iOS features can be activated here.

You can also use predictive text on your Mac. When typing, press Esc and Alt and you get a drop-down menu offering suggestions for the next word. If you’re halfway through typing a word, the suggestions are for completing it. This trick doesn’t work in every app though.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Activity Monitor.

Chess.

In the Utilities folder, which is found within the Applications folder, there is an app called Activity Monitor. This app lets you see how your apps and other processes running on your Mac are affecting your computer’s CPU, memory, energy, disk and network usage.

Did you know that macOS comes with its own Chess came? It’s found in the Applications folder. Select New (CMD-N) to start a game, choose between chess variants and whether to play against a human or the computer, or even online through the Game Center.

Click the tabs at the top of the window to switch between the data that’s displayed. Click the Process Name above the figures to toggle between showing high-to-low and vice versa. Click on a process to highlight it, then click the ‘X’ icon (top left) for options to quit.

Open the Preferences, via. the Chess menu or by pressing CMD-comma, and you can change the board and appearance of the pieces, how long the computer takes to make a move, various options for voice control and more. There’s a huge range of voices to choose from.

Calculator Features.

The macOS Calculator app does more than you think. Click on the View menu in the top bar and you can switch between using a basic, four-function calculator, a scientific calculator and a model designed for programmers. You can switch between them at will.

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Another handy task for which you can use the Calculator app is conversions. Just type the number you wish to convert into the calculator. Then from the Convert menu, select what type of conversion you need and the specific units you wish to convert from and to.

Top Tips For Your Mac

Stickies.

Using TextEdit.

Stickies is a great app which adds small windows that look like sticky notes to your desktop. Open a new note (CMD-N or through the Stickies menu) and you can change its colour if you wish, by using the application’s Color menu. This is great for organising notes.

When you need a text editor, but not the greater power offered by a word processor, the Mac’s bundled TextEdit app is brilliant. Just the thing for writing a quick letter. You can, if you wish, print it out if you have a compatible printer to go with your Mac.

You can collapse your stickies by double-clicking on their top bar. You can enlarge or reduce the text, change the font, add effects such as bold, italics or underlining and even throw in an image. You can make a sticky note float on top of all other windows at all times too.

Although not a full word processor, TextEdit is surprisingly powerful. Using the Fonts option in the Format pull-down menu, you can change the text size, format it in bold, underline, italics and more, open the colours window to change the colour of the text and more.

The Image Capture App.

Image Capture is a facility for getting images onto your Mac from external sources. If you open Image Capture and connect your smartphone or camera to the Mac through USB, you can copy photos onto your computer or delete them from your phone or camera.

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You can also use it to make a scan from your connected scanner. Just select the scanner from the column on the left of the window. Click Show Details for a quick preview scan, then select the area of the window you wish to scan, choose your settings and press Scan.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

System Preferences And How to Use Them When using a new Mac for the first time, it’s easy to begin using it for day-today tasks without configuring it properly or exploring the settings. It’s well worth spending a few minutes familiarising yourself with the System Preferences controls and the many options contained therein. So let’s take a look at what they can do.

General

The General options let you customise several different view options. It also lets you set whether applications should open the windows or documents you last viewed when you relaunch an application. Each option is clearly explained and changing them won’t negatively affect the operation of your computer. By default, menus and highlights are blue.

Accessing the Mac’s System Preferences. As long as you read what you’re adjusting before making any changes, delving into System Preferences can make using your Mac a lot more enjoyable. There are several ways to open the System Preferences pane. You can click on the Apple icon in the top left corner of the screen and select System Preferences..., click on the Dock icon showing cogs on a silver square, or open it from the Launchpad or Applications folder. Opening System Preferences reveals a window with a grid of icons split into categories, each representing a different area of options you can configure. Click a preference pane to open it and click the grid icon at the top of the window to return to the main System Preferences window.

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Desktop & Screen Saver: Desktop

Desktop & Screen Saver is split into two tabs. The Wallpaper tab allows you to set your wallpaper or use multiple wallpapers on your computer. The + and - icons in the bottom left let you add or remove folders of pictures to use as desktop wallpapers. The Change Picture feature cycles through all of the images in the specified wallpaper folder.

System Preferences

Desktop & Screen Saver: Screen Saver

Dock

Mission Control

Language & Region

The Screen Saver tab lets you select the source of photos to be displayed in your screen saver, the style in which they are displayed, and the duration your Mac should be idle before the screen saver starts. If you don’t want photographs, scroll down the left column to select a more traditional screen saver.

The Mission Control options lets you control how applications are grouped and arranged in the Mission Control screen, which is accessed from the Applications folder, LaunchPad, or by pressing the F3 key. Mission Control is useful for quickly switching between applications or open windows, and seeing what is currently running on your Mac.

This controls the appearance of the Dock, the row of icons at the bottom of your screen. You can customise the position of the dock, the size of the icons, and whether the dock should auto-hide and display only when you hover your mouse over the bottom of the screen, allowing for more of your screen space to be taken by programs you’re using.

To change your Mac’s language, first add a new one to the list of Preferred Languages by clicking the ‘+’ icon and selecting it. Drag the new language to the top of the list and restart. You can also change the region your Mac is to be used in, the calendar used, the day on which a new week starts and whether your menu bar clock is 12 or 24-hour.

Menu Bar Options. The Translucent Menu Bar option used to be found on the Desktop and Screensaver pane but now, if you want to switch to a non-translucent menu bar at the top of the screen, go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Display and make sure the ‘Reduce transparency’ option is ticked. Drop-down menus are then non-translucent too.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Security & Privacy: Security & Privacy controls the password protection of your user account, as well as when macOS asks you to enter your password. It also controls encryption of your files, the firewall and your privacy settings. Security settings should be changed with care, lest you make your Mac susceptible to malicious software.

Spotlight: Spotlight, the magnifying glass at the top right of the

Notifications:  Notifications controls which applications can display

Displays:  The Displays options vary depending on the type of Mac

Energy Saver:  Energy Saver is only available on Mac notebooks. You can configure when your display and or computer is put to sleep and whether storage drives are put to sleep. These settings can be customised for when your Mac is running on battery power and when the power adaptor is connected.

Keyboard:  Keyboard lets you customise the functionality of the F-keys. You can also control whether keys repeat when you hold them down and the backlight settings if you’re using a backlit keyboard. You can view the keys required for keyboard shortcuts and change them if you’d prefer. The Dictation settings are also here.

alerts and notifications on the screen, and the style in which they are displayed. You can also customise how many items each notification category displays in the Notification Center, which is accessed by pressing the icon at the top right of the screen.

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preferences window, lets you control which items are indexed and searchable through Spotlight. You can select or deselect file types, or head in to the Privacy section to ensure no files in a specific location are returned in Spotlight results, regardless of type.

you’re using. Typically you can control the screen resolution of your Mac, and also the mirroring settings if any AirPlay devices are available on your network. You can also configure and calibrate the colour profile of your screen(s).

System Preferences

Mouse:  Similarly, Mouse allows you to control the tracking, scroll, and

Trackpad:  Trackpad settings are for those using Mac notebooks, or those who have a Magic Trackpad connected. Similar to the mouse settings, you can control tracking, scroll, and click speeds, as well as enable and disable gestures. Adding the secondary (right) click to the bottom right corner of the trackpad is a very handy setting here.

Printers & Scanners:  Printers & Scanners controls the settings for

Sound:  With Sound, you can enable, disable and change the default sound effects for different events within macOS. You can also select the default input and output devices, which is useful if you happen to be using external audio interfaces or microphones. You can also change the volume in the speaker menulet.

Startup Disk:  Startup Disk is a setting that you will likely never

iCloud:  The iCloud settings allow you to control which data is synchronised with your iCloud account. From here you can view your iCloud account, manage the items that are currently being synchronised, and (under the Mangage button) increase or decrease the amount of space available on your account.

click speed of the mouse (if you’re using one). You can also find settings for adding and troubleshooting Bluetooth mice here. Remember, you don’t have to use Apple’s own Magic Mouse. You can use a third-party wireless or USB mouse if you prefer to do so.

printers and scanners you have connected to your computer, and also allows you to browse the network your Mac is connected to, to add new printers and scanners. You can also select the default printer and default paper size.

change, but should you ever attach an additional hard drive to your Mac from which you would like to be able to boot, or if you’d like to configure your Mac’s hard drive so that you can connect it to another Mac and boot from it, this is where you do so.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Internet Accounts:  Internet Accounts is a hub for all of the

App Store:  App Store controls how available updates are handled.

Network:  Here you can configure the network devices and locations to which your Mac can connect. You can add new VPNs here, as well as control your DHCP and DNS settings. Chances are unless you’ve been asked to change these settings by a network administrator or your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you won’t need to make any changes here.

Bluetooth:  Bluetooth is where you configure the majority of your wireless peripherals, such as Bluetooth keyboards and mice, as well as any other Bluetooth devices you might have. You can also disable Bluetooth entirely, which can help save battery life if you do not use any of these devices.

Extensions:  Using the Extensions preference pane, you can activate

Sharing:  Here you can configure various methods of sharing. You can

accounts your Mac has set up on it. These accounts are used for sending e-mails, as well as sharing on social networks on which you have profiles. The + and - icons can be used to add and remove accounts, and clicking an account allows you to further modify its settings.

and deactivate extensions that you’ve installed yourself and also Apple extensions. For example, you can change which apps appear in the Share menu. Extensions to third-party apps as well as your bundled Apple software are covered here.

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You can choose whether you want your Mac to automatically install new updates, check for updates but not install them or not background check at all. You can also see when your Mac last checked for update and check manually with the Check Now button.

control whether other devices on the network can remotely view and control your screen, which of your files are accessible across the network, whether you grant access to attached printers, scanners and other devices and so on. Each sharing setting can be controlled independently.

System Preferences

Users & Groups:  Here you can add new user accounts to your

Parental Controls:  When used in conjunction with a second user

Siri:  This is where you configure the Mac’s new Siri feature. You can

Date & Time:  Date & Time has additional localisation controls, allowing you to select whether your time zone is set automatically based on your current location. You can also select to have the time and date set automatically, control whether macOS displays a 12 or 24-hour clock and whether the separator blinks.

Time Machine:  Time Machine is a fantastic automated backup utility that ensures your files are kept backed up. Here you can enable and disable Time Machine, manage your backups and configure new backup disks. It’s always wise to back up your data in case your drive fails or you accidentally delete something, and Time Machine makes it easy.

Accessibility:  Accessibility allows you to control typical accessibility

Mac, change the password, configure which apps run when you log in, and set up the Guest User account. The Guest User account is useful if you want to let people use your Mac for a short amount of time without being able to access your files or saved passwords.

switch it on or off with the checkbox in the left column and change the language, accent, input source, keyboard shortcut and more in the right. If you don’t want to show Siri in the top bar, uncheck the box at the bottom of the pane.

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account, the Parental Controls options help make your Mac child-friendly by controlling which content can and can’t be accessed, and when the Mac can be used. It’s useful for stopping children using the computer when they should be sleeping or accessing inappropriate content on the Internet.

features such as screen contrast, cursor size, and keyboard settings. You can also configure spoken commands, which allow a user to launch programs by speaking. Each of these options has very flexible settings and the Help icon at the bottom right provides a lot of additional information.

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The iCloud Service For Cloud Computing You can keep your important files safe in remote online storage, and have them instantly accessible from all your Apple devices (your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and your iPad), with Apple’s revolutionary cloud storage service, iCloud. The files you want to keep safe have never been safer, or more easily accessible.

Storing Your Documents in iCloud

Click on your desktop to open Finder, then open iCloud Drive from the Go menu. You may need to log into iCloud using your Apple ID. You’ll see a Finder window showing the contents of your iCloud drive folder, with folders for some apps that store output in iCloud.

To save files of any type into your iCloud Drive folder, simply drag them from their current location (in this picture, that’s the desktop) and drop them in the open iCloud window. They are now stored remotely and accessible from any connected Apple device.

You can organise your iCloud folder like any other folder, including creating new folders within it. To move files into a new folder in your iCloud Drive, just drag and drop them to where you want them, just like you would with any other Finder folder.

To move files out of iCloud storage and back to your hard drive, drag them out of the iCloud folder and onto your desktop or into a folder that isn’t in your iCloud Drive. Confirm the move when you’re asked to and the files are removed from your iCloud storage.

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iCloud

Back to My Mac

Syncing Apps in iCloud. You can sync apps such as Mail, Contacts and Notes in iCloud, so edits made on one device also appear on others.

You can access your other iCloud enabled computers remotely, over an Internet connection using Back to My Mac. First of all, open the System Preferences from the Apple menu or the Dock and then click the iCloud preference pane in the third row.

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Open System Preferences, through the Apple menu, the Dock or the Applications Folder. It doesn’t matter which. Click on Internet Accounts, which is next to the iCloud icon.

Scroll down the list of iCloud features until you get to Back to My Mac near the bottom. Check the box next to Back to My Mac to switch it on; you might need to type your administrator password. If asked, do so then click the OK button.

Click on the iCloud option in the left sidebar to see which apps are currently set to sync via your iCloud account. If any are unticked that you want to sync, tick them.

Go back to the main System Preferences window, and select Sharing. From here, choose the services you wish to allow to be shared over iCloud. Ensure Back to My Mac is also enabled on any computer you want to access remotely.

Your chosen apps are now synchronised across all your Apple devices signed into the same iCloud account, as long as those devices are also set to sync the same data.

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iCloud Photo Library

To enable iCloud Photo Library on your Mac, first of all, open the Photos app and in the Photos pull-down menu, select Preferences as shown, to get the Preferences window.

In the Preferences window, click on iCloud, and then check the box labelled iCloud Photo Library. Your photos are uploaded to your iCloud; this may take some time.

You can choose between ‘Download Originals to this Mac’, to keep a backup copy of your library on your Mac, and ‘Optimise Mac Storage’ to leave it all on the cloud.

Now do the same on any other Macs you have. Any duplicates should be resolved by iCloud as you go. Naturally, you only need a backup of your library on one Mac.

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Sharing an iCloud File. With High Sierra, you can share a file in your iCloud Drive just by sending someone a link. Right or Ctrl-Click on the file and select Share > Add People. From the window that pops up, choose a means of sending the link. You can select whether the people to whom you send the link can make changes to the file, or only view it.

To sync your iOS device’s Photos app with your iCloud Photo Library, first open the Settings app from the home screen. It’s the one that looks like a machine cog.

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iCloud

Find My Mac. Enabling Find My Mac in iCloud’s preferences might help you to locate your missing computer if it’s ever lost or stolen.

Click iCloud, your name at the top of the left column, then iCloud in the right. Click Photos, and switch on iCloud Photo Library to enable syncing, and upload your device’s photos to iCloud.

To enable Find My Mac on your Mac, you must be signed into your iCloud account. Go into System Preferences, click on iCloud and make sure the Find My Mac checkbox is ticked.

All your photographs are shown as thumbnails and you can select and import them at will. Here you can see a collection of photos imported to our Mac using iCloud Photo Library.

To locate a stolen Mac from an iPhone or iPad, open the Find My iPhone app (it also works for Macs), and click on the Mac from the list offered. Again, you need to be signed into iCloud.

You can also review your photos from any computer with a web browser. Just go to www.icloud.com, log into your iCloud account and open the Photos web application.

You can also find your Mac using the iCloud website’s Find My iPhone app. Go to www.icloud.com, sign into your account and open the web app, which works like its iOS counterpart.

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Safari in iCloud.

iCloud Keychain

To let iCloud share all your information from Safari across your devices, open System Preferences and click on the iCloud preference pane. It’s found in the middle row, on the left-hand side.

When you sign up for an account on a website in Safari, maybe to join a forum or register for a newsletter, Safari suggests a password to use. You can use that password at the click of a button.

Find Safari and check its checkbox. You can now access your bookmarks and reading list on your other Apple devices, as long as they’re linked to the same iCloud account and also have Safari ticked.

It’s then saved to your iCloud Keychain and synced across your Apple devices. If you ever need to see your password, open the Keychain Access app (it’s in the Applications > Utilities folder).

If you have tabs open in Safari on another Mac or iOS device, you can access them on your Mac via the cloud. In Safari, click the tabs icon (top right) and scroll down to see your other devices’ open tabs.

Find and double-click on the account you wish to view, then in the pop-up window, click the Show Password box. Type your admin password in the next window and the password is shown.

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iCloud

Messages in iCloud

Upgrade Your iCloud Drive.

The latest update to the Mac and iPhone/iPad’s operating systems allow Messages to be synced over iCloud. To activate this on your Mac, open Messages. Under the Messages menu, select Preferences.

To upgrade your iCloud storage, go to System Preferences > iCloud. Click the Manage button. From the next screen, you can delete documents and data from your iCloud if you wish.

In the Preferences window, click on the Accounts tab at the top of the window. Make sure Enable Messages in iCloud is checked. You can sync your messages from here by pressing the Sync Now button.

Click Change Storage Plan... in the top right. On the next screen, you’re shown your current plan and options to upgrade for a higher monthly fee. Click on one to choose and click Next.

On an iPad or iPhone, go to Settings > [Your name] > iCloud, and make sure Messages is switched on. Your messages are now stored on iCloud and synced between all your Macs and iOS devices.

Click the Downgrade Options if you want a smaller, cheaper plan. When asked, input your Apple ID and password and you will be immediately switched to the new iCloud storage plan.

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iCloud Desktop Documents & Folders With macOS and iOS, you can not only store your documents on your iCloud but also files and folders that are found on your desktop. It’s done automatically, so a file on your Mac’s desktop is accessible from your iOS device and other Macs. This is how to make use of the iCloud Desktop Documents & Folders feature.

To switch on iCloud Desktop Documents and Folders on your Mac, open System Preferences and click on iCloud. Click on the Options button next to iCloud Drive and then check the box next to Desktop & Documents Folders. It may take time to set up.

On an iOS device, open the Files app, which is new in iOS 11, or the iCloud Drive app if you’re using an older version of iOS. Under the iCloud Drive option, there’s a folder called Desktop. All files currently stored on your Mac’s desktop are also shown in here.

Documents and data on your Mac’s desktop can now be accessed through the iCloud Drive folder of any Mac or iOS device signed into the same iCloud account. All Macs must be running High Sierra and all iOS devices must have iOS 10 or later.

You can also access your Desktop documents and folders using the website. Just point your browser at www.icloud.com and sign in. Open the iCloud Drive and the Desktop folder is there. You can do this on any Internet-capable device.

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iCloud Desktop & Mission Control

Mission Control Manage Your Desktop Apple has introduced a few new features to Mission Control, making window management simpler and more instinctive. It looks very similar to previous versions of Mission Control and is activated in the same way, but underneath the surface it boasts some interesting functions. Let’s take a look at what’s new and what’s the same.

To activate Mission Control, swipe upwards with three fingers on a trackpad or tap the F3 key on your keyboard. This is unchanged from previous versions of the Mac’s operating system, unless you’ve modified the gesture settings yourself.

Unlike pre-Sierra versions of Mission Control, open windows are presented in a single layer instead of being stacked according to which application produced them. Click on a window to bring its app to the fore.

You can open a document in full screen from Mission Control simply by dragging its window upwards, onto the strip showing the desktops. You can also create a new desktop space by clicking the plus sign, whether this Spaces bar is open or not.

You can still use the Exposé buttons in High Sierra. F3 takes you straight to Mission Control. You can clear the Desktop with Fn-F11 too. This combination of familiar features and new material makes Mission Control great to use.

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Using Extensions On a Web Browser You can add extensions to modern web browsers, giving them all sorts of new features and functions. They’re easy to install and use and also easy to switch off or remove altogether, should you decide you no longer need them. Here we show you how to add extensions to the three most popular web browsers for Mac: Safari, Chrome and Firefox.

Adding Extensions to Safari

Open the Safari app. In the Safari menu, choose the Safari Extensions option near the top to take you to a gallery of extensions which you can add to your browser. Recent and popular extensions are listed here on the first page; scroll up and down to take a look.

If you’re looking for an extension that suits a specific task, click on the categories option and choose one of the categories on offer. Alternatively, use the search field to look for a named extension or function. Navigate to the extension you want.

Click on an extension to read all about it. Click the Install Now link to add it to your browser. Here we installed the eBay extension, which gives us an eBay button in Safari’s toolbar. If we click it, we can keep an eye on our eBay sales and bids.

To review your extensions, select Preferences in the Safari menu and click on Extensions in the toolbar. You can turn off an extension temporarily by clicking its square in the left-hand column; this is a great way of testing which extension is causing a problem.

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Using Extensions on a Web Browser

Some extensions can be configured using this screen too. Here for example, you can choose which types of ads are hidden by this ad blocker for Facebook. To uninstall an extension completely, click the Uninstall button under its description at the top.

Safari extensions include ad blockers to stop various types of ads appearing, a translator that translates web sites into your chosen language and various tools to save sites into apps such as Evernote or Pocket. The 1Password extension auto-fills forms for you too.

Adding Extensions to Chrome.

Adding Extensions to Firefox.

Google’s popular Chrome web browser is available for free from www.google.com/chrome. Here’s how to add extensions.

Firefox, by Mozilla, is also a free download. Again, you can add extensions to it. Get it from www.mozilla.org/firefox.

To add an extension to Google Chrome for Mac, select Preferences in the Chrome menu. When it opens within the browser, go to the Appearance heading and click on Open Chrome Web Store. Click Extensions, select the one you want and click on it.

To install a Firefox add-on, click on the three-lines icon (top right) and select Add-ons. On the next screen, selectAdd-ons on the left, then scroll down to the See More Add-ons button. Click it to see the range of extensions available for the Firefox browser.

Click on Add To Chrome (top right) and then Add Extension to install it. To uninstall a Chrome extension, click the three dots icon (top right) and select More Tools > Extensions. On the next screen, click the dustbin next to the extension you want to erase.

To install an add-on, click on it and then click on the Add to Firefox button and accept it in the pop-up windows. To uninstall, click the three-lines icon, choose Add-ons and then click Extensions on the left. You can disable and or remove extensions from here.

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Split View Screens And What They Do In macOS you can open two applications in full-screen mode, viewing them both on a single display using a split screen. Just the thing for doing research in Safari whilst making notes in Pages; or reading an address from a contacts card and looking it up on the Maps application. Here’s a guide to setting up and using Split View.

To use Split View mode, first open an app you want to use as a split-screen app. Here we’ve chosen Safari but any app that’s compatible with split-screen mode will do. Just open the app window; there’s no need to open it as a full screen app at this stage.

Click on the window’s top bar and drag it upwards, onto the menu bar. A strip appears, offering the current desktop image and a receptacle for the app you’re dragging. Drop the window onto the plus sign to make it a full screen app.

Go back to the desktop and open the second app you wish to use as a full-screen app in Split View mode. Here we’re using Apple’s own Pages word processor app, though once again, you can use almost any app on your Mac.

Drag the window for this second app upwards, onto the menu bar, as you did with the first one. The strip appears again. Drop the second app onto the desktop you created earlier showing the first app, which is represented by an icon on this strip.

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Split View Screens

The two apps now offer a combined icon, which you can see here, labelled ‘Safari & Pages’. This is a single desktop, in which both those apps are running, in split view. To open them, click on the icon in the usual way.

In Split View mode, you can make full use of the two apps, just as if they were each running singly in full-screen mode. If you wish to allocate one app more space than the other, click and drag the black line that divides them.

To take one of the apps back out of full Split View mode, move the pointer to the top of the screen until the gumdrops appear; then click on the green icon, just like you would with a regular full-screen app. The app in question leaves full screen mode.

If you’ve already made an app full-screen in the usual way, that is, by clicking the green gumdrop icon, you can still drag a second app to the top of the screen and dropping it on the full-screen app’s icon, as shown earlier.

The split view apps are treated like a desktop by macOS, just like a regular full-screen app is. Therefore, you can switch between your desktop and the split view apps by swiping the trackpad with three fingers or a Magic Mouse with two.

A useful trick with split view apps is to open two Finder windows, allowing you to manually compare and copy between two folders. To copy an item (instead of simply moving it) hold ALT while you drag an item from one to another.

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External Optical Drives And the DVD Player App Most recent Macs don’t have a built-in optical drive, that is, a drive to read and possibly write to DVDs and CDs. If you still need to use optical disks, there’s a solution: buy an external drive. You can even get USB optical drives that can read and write Blu-ray disks. Here we show you how to connect and use an optical drive.

Connecting and Using an Optical Drive

Buy an optical drive that’s Mac compatible (most are). It doesn’t have to be an Apple SuperDrive, though of course that’s an option. Here we’re using an OWC Slim drive, which connects through USB, can read and write to DVDs and CDs and also read Blu-ray disks.

Connecting the drive is as simple as plugging it in. If it’s a portable drive, it’s powered by the Mac but other optical drives need mains power too. If you have a notebook which only has USB C ports, you might need an adapter or a dock to connect your optical drive.

Insert an optical disk in your external drive and it appears in a Finder window’s sidebar, and also on the desktop. If you don’t want the disk icon on your desktop or if it isn’t there and you do want it, go to the Finder menu, select Preferences > General and check or uncheck the box.

To eject the disk, either click its eject icon on the Finder sidebar or drag the desktop icon into the trash in the dock. When you do this, the trash icon is replaced with an eject icon, as shown. Simply drag the disk onto this icon and release, and the disk is ejected from the drive.

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External Optical Drives

The DVD Player App

Burning a Disk. If your external optical drive can burn disks as well as write to them, follow this guide to do so from your Mac.

Open the DVD Player app. Two windows open: the viewer, where the DVD video is played and a small controls window showing buttons that take you to a DVD menu or title, an eject button and video controls. Slide out the drawer on the right as shown for more controls.

To burn a data CD or DVD, which can be used on Windows and Linux computers as well as Macs, first put a blank disk in your optical drive. A window appears asking what you want to do with it. Select ‘Open Finder’, then click the OK button to proceed. Open a Finder window.

Slot in a DVD video disk and it boots up in the DVD Player. You can navigate DVD menus by dragging your pointer onto an option and clicking. To go full screen, click the green gumdrop, top left in the Viewer window, select Full Size from the View menu or press Shift-CMD-F

The blank DVD is shown in the sidebar of the Finder window. Click on it. Obviously, as it’s blank, there’s nothing to see. Now move whatever it is you want to copy into its window. It’s still where it was before too as this process copies it without deleting or moving your data.

A Mac cannot natively play commercially produced Blu-ray videos, but there are several options for third-party applications. Here we’re using Macgo Mac Blu-ray Player, but others are available. Remember, your optical drive must be Blu-ray compatible to use Blu-ray disks.

Click the Burn button on the right, under the toolbar. A window pops up inviting you to name the disk and choose the burn speed (just leaving it on default is OK). When you’re ready, click the Burn button and your disk is burned. When it’s done, you can eject it if you wish.

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New User Accounts How to Use Them User accounts are your first line of defence when it comes to protecting your safety and privacy when using your Mac. By setting up accounts for each person that has access to your Mac, you can control what they can do on the computer and the Internet. There are different types of accounts, so let’s take a look at how to use them.

Creating a New Account

To create a new account, click the Apple menu in the top-left of the screen and select System Preferences. Locate and click the Users & Groups icon in the System section to open the Users & Groups window.

Click the padlock at the bottom-left to allow you to make changes. As an extra security measure, you’re asked to input your admin credentials at this point.

Now you have the correct permissions, click on the ‘+’ symbol just above the padlock in the bottom left corner of the window to bring up the new account details window.

Enter the required details to open a new account. Choose what sort of account you wish to create using the pull-down menu; see the next page for an explanation of the differences between account types.

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New User Accounts

Different Account Options. There are six types of user account but what are they and what do they do? Let’s take a look at how they differ. User accounts are designed to let several people use a single computer. Each account has its own settings so they can have their own wallpaper, aliases, dashboard and secure storage for private documents. It means more than one person can share a Mac, without giving the others access to personal settings and documents.

Standard:  As the name suggests, this is the account type that would normally be used. Like the admin account, it also allows the user to modify settings, install applications, save documents and so forth, but only for that specific account.

Administrator:  An Administrator account lets the user make

Managed with Parental Controls:  This creates an account

Sharing Only:  This is a network-based account for those who need access to shared files or resources across a network, but do not need to make changes or physically log in.

The Guest Account:  The Guest Account allows a user to use your Mac without an account, but not to make or save changes. It’s great for visiting friends who just want to check web email or log into Facebook. The guest account resets itself when the user logs off; any items saved are deleted. To enable it, select Guest User from the User & Groups window and click the ‘Allow users to log in to this computer’ option.

Group:  Setting up a Group allows you to give the same folder and file

whose access to applications can be carefully controlled and monitored. It’s perfect for a family with children of different ages.

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system-wide changes to settings, add, modify and delete user accounts, and install applications for all users. This type of account should only be given to someone you trust to administer your Mac.

access privileges to multiple users. After setting up a group and identifying the people who are members, you can assign specific access privileges for a folder or file to that group, and all its members then enjoy those privileges. It’s a great way of allowing multiple users of the same Mac access to shared data or a collaborative project.

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Automator Assistant And How it Works Automator is a great means of speeding up your work flow, but it’s a feature that’s woefully underused by Mac owners. Using Automator’s simple drag-and-drop interface, you can create a chain of instructions and carry out complicated tasks at the click of a button. Here’s how to create your first script in the Automator app.

Creating an Automator Script

Automator is in your Applications folder. It’s the app with the robot icon. Open it. You’re invited to open a document you’ve already created; as we’re starting a new Automator action, press New Document instead. We’re going to create a workflow script to resize photographs, so choose Workflow from the options.

The next window is divided into three columns. The first (left-hand) column lists the types of items on which you can perform actions. The second (middle) column shows the actions that can be performed on the selected item, and the big window to the right is for the workflow we’re about to create.

Now it’s time to add the photos we’re going to scale. We’ve dragged their folder called ‘Summer Holidays’ onto the desktop, and created a new one called ‘Summer Holidays (Scaled)’ for the scaled pictures. This is just to make it easier to show you what’s going on – they can be taken from anywhere. Highlight the pictures you want to scale, and drag them onto the workflow window as shown.

Select Photos from the left-hand column, and then drag Scale Images from the middle column into the workflow window. You’re offered the chance to add a Copy Finder Items action, so the images are duplicated before they’re scaled and the originals unaffected. It’s up to you whether you wish to do this, of course, but for this tutorial we pressed ‘Add’.

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Automator Assistant

As you can see, the workflow now has three items in it: Get Specified Finder Items, Copy Finder Items and Scale Images. To instruct your workflow to copy the scaled photos into the correct folder, use the pull-down menu in the Copy Finder Items window to navigate to the folder you want to put them in, in this case, Summer Holidays (Scaled). Then click Choose. As you can see, the To: pull-down menu now shows the correct folder.

Now we must set the scale size for your new batch of photographs. You can see from the info box in the bottom left that pictures can be scaled according to the length of their longest side, or as a percentage of the original size. We’re setting the longest side to 600 pixels; scaling keeps the photographs in proportion, so we don’t have to set the shortest side as well.

Now all that remains is to run the workflow. Press the Run button in the top-right corner of the Automator window. If you want to see the results at each stage, click on the word Results in some or all of the workflow’s specific tasks, as shown. Progress is shown, as each item that’s been worked on appears in the window. A tick appears next to the word ‘Results’ in each task; if a red cross appears instead, there was a problem.

Now the workflow has done its job, we can open up the folders we set up earlier and take a look at the results. The two pictures here are displayed at actual size. The one on the left is the original photograph, the one on the right is the scaled version. Quite a difference, and all eight photographs in the folder have been similarly scaled. Much quicker than doing it by hand.

Press CMD-S or select ‘Save’ from Automator’s File menu at the top of the screen and you can save a workflow for later use. Save it to iCloud Drive and you can pick it up from any Mac currently signwed into your iCloud account. Save it as an Application and you can use it simply by dragging and dropping files and folders onto its icon. Alternatively, save it as a Workflow to reload into Automator.

Another way to make a workflow is by getting Automator to record a series of actions carried out by yourself. Press the Record button in the top-right of the Automator window and this window appears in the top-left corner of your desktop. Do whatever it is you want to record into a workflow; such as open a document, modify it and close it again; and when you’ve finished, press Stop in the Automator Recording window. Your actions are recorded as a workflow. You can also use Record to make a specific step in a regular workflow, if nothing in the middle column fits your needs.

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Closed Clamshell Mode On Your Mac Notebook With the MacBook’s Closed Clamshell Mode, you can use your Mac notebook with an external screen or projector when your MacBook itself is closed. It’s very useful if you want to use your notebook as a desktop computer when at home on your desk, but also to unplug it and carry it away with you. Here’s how to go about it.

To make use of your Mac notebook’s Closed Clamshell Mode, you need your MacBook (obviously), its charger, a monitor, a USB or Bluetooth keyboard and a mouse or trackpad, again Bluetooth or USB. A stand such as the Twelve South BookArc is useful but not essential.

If you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard and or mouse, go to the Apple menu, choose System Preferences and then Bluetooth. Put your Bluetooth peripherals into pairing mode (see their instruction booklets), then when they appear in this window, click Connect to pair them.

Switch on your MacBook. Connect it to the mains with your charger and also to your monitor. If your MacBook only has USB C ports, you might need an adapter but here we’re using HDMI. If you’re using a USB keyboard and mouse, connect those too.

When your MacBook’s desktop appears on the external display, close the lid. After turning blue, the screen then shows your desktop; and even though your MacBook is closed, you can use it with your external keyboard and mouse/trackpad, as if it were a desktop computer.

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Closed Clamshell Mode

Closed Clamshell Mode is useful if you use a dock, such as the one shown here, especially if you have one of the latest MacBook Pros; these only have USB C ports and therefore need adapters if you want to connect them to older USB peripherals such as a hard drive or printer.

If your dock is mains powered and connects to a USB C port, it also acts as an external power supply. There’s no need for a separate charger, your mains-powered dock is sufficient. As well as a power supply, docks give you a wide range of connectivity options.

The expansion ports afforded by attaching a dock depends on the model of dock you buy; make sure yours covers all the peripherals you need to connect. You can use a dock to connect external hard drives, a printer, Ethernet for a cabled Internet connection and more.

Yet another advantage of a dock is you can leave your peripherals connected to it, unplug your MacBook and take it away with you. When you return and want to work at your desk again, just plug the MacBook back into your Dock and you can use it with all your peripherals.

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If you’ve tried connecting your MacBook to your display using Closed Clamshell Mode but can’t get the screen to show your desktop, try putting your computer in sleep mode (Apple menu), then connecting the monitor before waking the notebook once more.

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A wide range of docks are available for MacBooks, using either Thunderbolt 1/2 or USB 3 (aka Thunderbolt 3) ports. The one we’ve shown here is OWC’s Thunderbolt 3 Dock, which is ideal for the new MacBook Pros. It offers a huge range of connectivity ports and is available from www.macsales.com.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

The Sharing Options A Regular Mac Feature The sharing icon, a square with an up-pointing arrow, can be found throughout macOS and its apps. It allows you to share data and files between the app you’re currently in and other Mac apps, or with other people too. What the sharing icon does depends on which app you’re using when you open it; here are some of the things you can do.

Key Methods of File Sharing on Your Mac. The Share button is available throughout macOS High Sierra and allows you to share data with others.

Twitter

Messages Twitter is the social networking phenomenon that’s taken over the world. Discuss world events in real time as they happen or simply share your thoughts.

Facebook

You can attach files and transfer them in Messages through the Share option or open a conversation by sharing a file. And if you’re sending to another Apple device, it’s free.

Reminders

Facebook is the number one online social hub. Whenever you find or do something cool that you want to share with your friends, Facebook is the place to do it.

LinkedIn

Apple’s useful Reminders app is great for jogging your memory. If you need to share a reminder with someone else, you can do so through Sharing.

Notes

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and recruiters. It’s great for linking up with people in a similar profession, and jobs are often advertised on LinkedIn too.

YouTube

You can now share documents and data such as URLs to the new Notes app too, either adding it to an existing note or creating a new one.

Mail

The ultimate video library. There’s everything on YouTube from high tech software demonstrations to fluffy bunnies being cute. YouTube is the place to share all your videos.

AirDrop

If you don’t want to share your images or files via any of the available social networks, there’s always good old-fashioned email.

Photos This is the simplest way to share files between two Wi-Fi-enabled Macs in close proximity. With this feature you can send files to any nearby Mac with a couple of clicks.

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You can share photos directly from the Photos app, or you can use the Share button in another source to save a picture to Photos.

The Sharing Options

How to Use the Share Button

Wherever you see the Share button, it indicates the currently selected file, images, URL, video or other such file can be shared in one or more ways (not all file types are compatible with all sharing options). Click the button for the sharing options for that particular file.

Selecting Messages in the sharing options, for example, bring up a new message window with the file attached. Type in the email address or username of the person you want to send the file to. You can also add a message.

Tweeting a file is easy. If you want to add a message just type it into the text field and click Send when you’re done. You can also add a location if you wish. The Twitter icon only appears in Sharing if you’ve already integrated it with macOS.

When uploading a file to Facebook you can add a comment and choose whether to make the file public or private. You can also add a location if you wish. Again, the Facebook icon only appears in Sharing if you’ve already integrated it with macOS.

AirDrop enables you to transfer a file directly between two Wi-Fi-enabled Macs. You will have to ensure the receiving machine has AirDrop enabled. To do this, select AirDrop from the Go menu in Finder on the receiving machine.

If you have more than one email account set up in Mail, when you share a file via email it will automatically be sent from the account that appears at the top of your list of inboxes. To select the account from which you’d like the email to be sent, drag it to the top of the list in Mail.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Home Sharing From Your Mac You can stream your complete iTunes library from your Mac to your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple TV with Home Sharing. It’s great for listening to music that’s not stored on your iOS device. You can take your music with you when around the house and it doesn’t take up valuable storage space on your phone.

Setting Up on Your Mac

First make sure your iOS device is running iOS 4.3 or higher and the version of iTunes on your Mac is at least version 10.2. They probably are.

Next open up iTunes on your Mac. Click on the File drop-down menu and move down to Home Sharing as shown. Now select Turn on Home Sharing.

You’re now greeted by this window. You must enter your Apple ID and password as instructed and then click the Turn On Home Sharing button at the foot of the window.

Wait for the message telling you that Home Sharing has been successfully set up. You’re now up and running and ready to stream your music via Home Sharing.

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Home Sharing

Using Home Sharing on an iOS Device

Switch to your Apple mobile device. Open the Settings app and then open the Music link as seen here.

At the bottom of the music settings you should see Home Sharing. Enter your Apple ID and password.

Go back to the home screen and open the Music app. If you haven’t moved it, it’s found in the dock at the foot of the screen.

In the Music app, select Library icon at the foot of the screen. Now select the Home Sharing link, found above the row of your recently added albums.

Now select the Home Sharing library from which you want to stream. If you’re only home sharing from one computer, there will only be one option here.

Your iOS device loads the list of music stored on your Mac, then presents you with this screen, from where you can navigate to the songs you want to stream.

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Home Sharing to an Apple TV. If your Apple TV is a 4K or 4th gen model, go to Settings > Accounts > Home Sharing. On earlier Apple TVs, go to Settings > Computers. Select Turn on Home Sharing and enter your Apple ID and password. To stream music with Home Sharing, choose Computers from the main menu and then select your shared library. www.bdmpublications.com

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Family Sharing With Your Apple Devices Why buy a song, iBook or show for every member of your family, when you can buy it once and share it with them, simply and above all, legally? With Family Sharing, you can invite up to five family members to join your group, after which you can all share your digital purchases and also photos, a calendar and reminders. Here’s how.

Setting Up

To use Family Sharing, your Mac must be running OS X Yosemite or later and at least iTunes 12. You can also share on an iOS device running iOS 8 or later, and a Windows PC running iCloud for Windows 4.0. To find out what OS your iOS device is running, go to Settings > General > About. It’s listed under Version.

To set up Family Sharing, the person who intends to be the family organiser should open System Preferences (from the Apple menu, top left corner of desktop), and click on the iCloud option in the third row. From here, click on the Set Up Family button which is found in the left-hand sidebar.

Follow the instructions. You’re asked whether you want to be the family organiser, the person who invites family members to join the group and approves App Store, iBooks and iTunes purchases for the children. Click Continue to confirm you’re logged into your personal Apple ID, then again to agree to purchases being made on your credit card.

You can choose to share your location with family members if you wish. When you’ve made your choice and clicked Continue once more, you arrive here; at a screen with your family group listed. As you’ve only just set it up, you’re currently the sole member, and listed as ‘Organizer’. You should now invite some new members.

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Family Sharing

Adding Family Members

Having set yourself up as the family organiser, it’s time to invite the rest of your family to join the group. Press the Add Family Member button, and you’re asked to add the name or email address of a family member, or create a new Apple ID for a child who doesn’t currently have one. Make your selection and press Continue.

Verify you’re the family organiser by adding the security code from the credit card you use to make purchases on your Apple ID. It’s a three figure number on the back of your card. Press Continue. If your family member is on hand, get them to enter their Apple ID password to accept your request. If not, click on the option to send an email invitation.

When a family member accepts a family invitation, you’re sent a notification. You can then open your Manage Family pane as described previously, and choose whether that person can see your location, and/or approve purchases made by the children. To add more family members, press the ‘+’ icon in the left-hand toolbar. To remove them, highlight the member in question and press the ‘-‘ icon.

If the invitation is sent to your family member by email, until it’s accepted, their entry looks like this, pending their joining your family. Tap Done and you’re taken back to the iCloud System Preference but the Set Up Family button has changed to Manage Family. Press it to change settings for individual family members and to resend an invitation that’s gone astray.

Sharing Purchased Media:  To download media purchased by

Other Features:  Your Calendar and Reminders apps now have

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another family member, they must have ‘Share my purchases’ ticked in their Family Sharing pane. Open System Preferences > iCloud and click on Manage Family. Click on the family member in question, then the Apps & Services tab. In the Purchase Sharing section, selected in the left-hand column, make sure ‘Share my purchases with family’ is checked.

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Family categories, for shared to-do lists and events. You can also set up a shared iPhoto album. The Find My Friends iOS app can track family members’ locations, and Find My Mac/iPhone/iPad can be used to trace their lost or stolen Apple gear. It’s really useful, and very easy to use once you’ve set it up.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

The Handoff Feature For macOS and iOS Handoff is a useful new feature. With Handoff, you can start writing an email on your iPhone or other iOS device and you can pick up where you left off on your Mac; or put together a report in Pages on your Mac and add the finishing touches with your iPad on the train to work. Here’s how to set up and use the Handoff feature.

Setting Up Handoff

To use the feature, iOS devices must be running iOS 8 or later and no older than an iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad mini, iPad mini with Retina display or iPod touch (5th generation). Macs must be running the Yosemite operating system or later.

Your devices must also be logged into the same iCloud account. On an iOS device, open Settings and tap ‘Sign in to your iPad/ iPhone’ and sign in. If you’re already signed in but need to use a different account, scroll all the way down and tap Sign Out.

On your Mac, open System Preferences (from the Apple menu or Dock). From there, click on iCloud (middle row, left-hand side). Sign in using your Apple ID and password. Again, if you need to sign out and use a different account, there’s a link.

Turn on Handoff. In System Preferences, click General (top left corner) and switch on the option titled Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices. On an iOS device, go to Settings > General > Handoff. Switch on the Handoff option. If it’s missing, your device is too old.

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The Handoff Feature

Using macOS and iOS Handoff

If you have a document open on your Mac and want to continue to work on it on an iOS device, the app you were using on your Mac is placed in the iOS Dock and badged. Here you see the Safari app on an iPad, badged for Handoff.

Tap the badged icon and the app opens, with the document, web page or other such item you were looking at on your Mac opening automatically. In Safari, as seen here, it opens in a new tab and doesn’t close whatever you were looking at last time you used your iOS device.

To pick up a document on your Mac using Handoff, go to the Dock, and on the left, you’ll see an app icon badged with the device on which you last edited the document in question. Click on it to launch the app and open the document.

Or use the App Switcher. Hold CMD and press the tab key to summon it. Keep tapping tab to cycle through your open apps. Again, if a Handoff document is available, it’s shown here with the icon for the app that created it badged with the device it was last edited on.

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Handoff-compatible Applications. The number of applications that are compatible with Apple’s new Handoff feature is growing all the time. As well as Apple’s own software, third-party developers can take advantage of the feature and make their own applications Handoff-compatible. More and more apps are becoming Handoff compatible. Here’s some of the apps you can use with this feature:

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Mail

Keynote

Calendar

Safari

Maps

Contacts

Pages

Messages

Numbers

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How to Get More From Your Mac

The Continuity Feature For macOS and iOS With a Mac running OS X 10.10 or later and an iOS device with iOS 8 or later installed, your Apple gear works together seamlessly. You can make and receive calls on your MacBook or desktop Mac, send and receive text messages on any of your devices and share files between your Mac and iOS devices with AirDrop.

Wi-Fi Instant Hotspot

Instant Hotspot’s system requirements are stringent. A Mac must be mid-2012 or newer and running Yosemite or later. To find out when your Mac was made, click on the Apple icon in the top left and select About This Mac. An iOS device must be an iPhone 5 or later, iPad (4th gen) or later, an iPod touch (5th gen) or later or any iPad mini.

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Make sure your Mac and all the iOS devices you want to use with Instant Hotspot are signed into the same iCloud account. On an iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud and on a Mac, open System Preferences (under the Apple menu, top left corner or from the Dock) and click on the iCloud icon.

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Make sure your iPhone has a cellular connection to the Internet. You should see a 3G or 4G symbol at the top of the screen. Make sure Personal Hotspot is switched on too. To do this open the Settings app and then open the Mobile Data link. Look for the Personal Hotspot option, and if it isn’t on already, switch it on.

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To access your Instant Hotspot Internet connection, on a Mac, click on the Wi-Fi menulet in the top right of the screen and select your iPhone from the list. On an iOS device, do the same through Settings > Wi-Fi. An indicator on the top of the iPhone’s screen shows a connection. If this fails, check your mobile phone carrier supports personal hotspots.

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The Continuity Feature

Phone Calls

The system requirements for Continuity phone calls are much less taxing than for some of its other services. All you need is an iPhone running iOS 8 with an activated carrier plan (that is, a contract or an in-credit pay-as-you-go account), and a Mac running Yosemite. If you want to take calls on other iOS devices, these too must be running iOS 8.

All Macs and iOS devices you wish to use for Continuity phone calls must be logged into the same iCloud account, and also on the same Wi-Fi network. On your Mac, click the Wi-Fi menulet in the top right end of the menu bar at the top of the desktop. On an iOS device, open Settings and look at what’s listed under Wi-Fi.

All devices must be signed into FaceTime with the same iCloud account. On a Mac, launch FaceTime and sign in. If already signed in with a different account, from the FaceTime pull-down menu, open Preferences and sign out. On an iOS device, go to Settings > FaceTime and sign in. On your iPhone, FaceTime and iPhone Mobile Calls must be on.

To answer a call on your Mac, wait for the notification to appear. You can then click on one of the options. Answering the call on your Mac means using its built-in mic and speakers, so be careful about taking a private call in a public place. To make a call on your Mac, click a phone number in Contacts, Calendar or Safari.

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To initiate a call using an iOS device other than an iPhone, tap on a number in Contacts, Calendar or Safari. To answer an incoming call on this device, use Slide to Answer, as instructed on the screen. With your Mac and your iOS devices set up to use Continuity Phone Calls, all your devices ring when there’s an incoming call.

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To switch off Continuity Phone Calls on one or more of your Apple devices, on a Mac, open FaceTime’s preferences and uncheck the box marked ‘Calls From iPhone’. On an iOS device, go to Settings > FaceTime and turn off ‘iPhone Mobile Calls’. The device is then unable to use Continuity Phone Calls until you switch it on again.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

SMS and MMS Messaging

To send or receive an SMS (Short Message Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), from your Mac you must be running Yosemite or later. You also need an iPhone running iOS 8.1 or later. Text messaging from an iPad or iPod touch also demands they be using iOS 8.1 or later.

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On your Mac, open the Messages app, then under the Messages menu in the top bar, open Preferences. Click on Accounts, then on your iMessage account and make sure it’s enabled. On an iOS device, go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive and again enter your Apple ID if necessary.

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Finally, on your iPhone, you must go to Settings > Messages and turn on Text Message Forwarding. Tap on this option, and you’re shown a list of devices logged into the same iCloud account. Switch on all the ones with which you want to share your text messages. Each device displays a verification code you must type on your iPhone.

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All your SMS and MMS messages now appear on your Mac and/or iOS devices, regardless of whether the person who sent them uses an iPhone. If the sender is using a non-Apple device, the speech bubbles you send are green instead of the blue that’s used for iMessages, that is, messages sent between Apple devices.

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Sending text messages through your Mac is incredibly convenient, especially for long messages that take a long time to type on your iPhone’s keyboard. It’s great for replying too − you can just use whichever device is nearest. If you’re working on your Mac, you get to read and reply to your text messages without even reaching for your phone.

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You can initiate a text message chat regardless of whether the other person uses an Apple device by clicking a phone number or Message icon in Safari, Contacts or Calendar. Here, in Contacts, click on the icon and select a number from the pop-up. A message window soon appears.

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Continuity Feature & Universal Clipboard

Universal Clipboard For macOS and iOS Universal Clipboard is a great way to shuttle small sections of data between Mac and iOS devices; as long as Macs are running at least macOS Sierra, and iOS devices are on iOS 10 or later, and all your devices are signed into the same Apple account. Here’s a guide to copying on one device and pasting to another using Macs and iOS devices.

To use the Universal Clipboard feature, the devices in question must be logged into the same iCloud account. If they’re yours, they probably already are but if you have trouble using this tutorial, it might be worth checking.

Now you can copy and paste a piece of text from one device to another, quickly and easily. On your Mac, simply copy it to your clipboard by highlighting the text in question, then pressing either CMD-X to cut it or CMD-C to copy.

Now, on your iOS device, double tap on the place where you want to paste the text you cut or copied on your Mac. From the pop-up menu, select Paste and it appears. There might be a slight lag while the text uploaded to iCloud.

It works the other way too. You can copy text from your iOS device running iOS 10 or later and paste it on your Mac using CMD-V. It works for images and video too. We copied this photo from Photos on our iPad and pasted it into TextEdit on our Mac.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Using Time Machine To Back Up and Restore The Time Machine backup utility is a very important part of the macOS operating system. It creates incremental backups of your files to a specified location, such as an external hard drive. These files can later be browsed and restored by running the Time Machine application. It’s great for restoring deleted or incorrectly changed files.

Setting Up Time Machine

Connect an external hard drive, via USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt, to your Mac. It should be at least the size of your Mac’s hard drive. The larger the drive, the further back in time you will be able to store backups. Now open System Preferences and click on Time Machine in the bottom row.

Click the Select Disk... button and you will be presented with a window listing your currently connected drives. Select the drive on which you would like to store your Time Machine backups. If your external drive isn’t already formatted as ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled)’, Time Machine invites you to erase and reformat it.

If you choose to reformat your disk, all data currently on the drive is wiped so if there’s something on there you want to keep, move it first. You might get a pop-up asking if you would like to use the connected drive with Time Machine. Click Decide Later so the Time Machine settings can be configured to your requirements first.

Once your external drive is connected and formatted correctly, you can always access Time Machine by opening System Preferences from Launchpad or the Applications folder on your Mac. Check the Show Time Machine in Menu Bar box and you can also access it from the menu bar.

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Time Machine

Backing Up to Time Machine

There’s an option to encrypt backups. This stops anyone from accessing the data on your drive without the password you specify. If you choose to encrypt your backups, simply enter and verify your password, enter a hint, and then proceed by clicking Encrypt Disk. You can click Choose Different Disk to return to the previous screen.

You’re now presented with a window that shows the status of your currently selected drive, the one that’s to be used for your Time Machine backups. This window lets you know how much space is available, as well as the date of your oldest and latest backup and when the next backup will take place.

By default, Time Machine is configured to back up all data on your Mac’s hard drive. If you click the Options button, you can add locations on your Mac’s hard drive not to be backed up. To exclude a new item, press the ‘+’ icon to reveal the file browser. Browse to the file or folder you don’t want included in your backups, and click the Exclude button.

To remove an item from the list of excluded backup items, click the item once to highlight it, and then click the ‘-’ icon. You can either Cancel or Save your changes to return to the previous screen. The item you removed is dropped from the list and will once more be backed up with your Mac’s next Time Machine backup.

To retrieve a file from Time Machine, Choose Enter Time Machine in the Time Machine menu and then navigate to the file you want. You can get hold of an older version of a current file or one you’ve deleted. When you’ve found it, highlight it and press Restore.

Its important that you keep your Time Machine backups separate to your data files. Never, for example, partition a hard drive and keep data on one partition and Time Machine backups on the other. If you do, both your data and your backups are lost if the hard drive fails.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Multi-use Touch Bar On Your MacBook Pro The Touch Bar is an OLED touchscreen that replaces the function keys on the newer models of MacBook Pro. What it does depends on what you’re currently doing on your Mac; if you’re using Messages, for example, it might offer emoticons to tap and use. If you’re using iTunes, it offers music controls. Here’s how it works.

The Touch Bar Explained 1

App-specific: 

As you can see, regular buttons like the Escape key and media controls can be replicated on the Touch Bar and placed where their function keys were.

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The Touch Bar: The Touch Bar runs

Because the OLED Touch Bar is in itself a mini screen, it can also display buttons that are specific to the app that you’re currently using.

What the Touch Bar shows depends on the app you’re currently using. Here it’s used with a video app but it can be configured for other software too.

along the top of the keyboard, where the function keys used to be. What it displays depends on what app you’re using.

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Regular Buttons: 

The versatility of the Touch Bar means you can use it as a slider, should the app allow. Here we can scroll forwards and backwards through a video.

App-related Buttons: 

Here we see the Siri button, for activating Apple’s digital assistant. Should the need arise, this part of the Touch Bar can also be used for Touch ID.

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Slider Bar: 

Siri Button: 

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Multi-use Touch Bar

Touch Bar Behaviour

System Functions:  When in the Finder, the Touch Bar shows the regular function keys we’re already used to, such as media controls and keyboard brightness.

Safari Touch Bar:  When you open Safari, the Touch Bar gives you

Website Touch Bar:  When you’re using a website, the Touch Bar gives you back buttons, a search field and more. The perfect tools for the job you’re currently doing.

Messages Touch Bar:  Switch to Messages and your most recently used emoticons will all be within easy reach, right there on the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar.

buttons for your favourite websites. Slide along it to scroll for even more website buttons.

Finding the Function Keys. If you find you need the function keys, as found on other Mac and MacBook keyboards, press the fn key (bottom left) and they appear.

Touch ID:  On the extreme right of the Touch Bar is a fingerprint

scanner. This can read your fingerprint to unlock your Mac, or for the Apple Pay payments service.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Customising Your Touch Bar

First of all, open System Preferences from the Dock or Apple menu. Open the Keyboard pane and select the Keyboard tab at the top. This shows a number of options for customising your Touch Bar using the two pull-down menus, ‘Touch Bar Shows’ and ‘Press Fn Key to’.

For further customisation options, click on the button titled ‘Customize Control Strip’. The Touch Bar icons wobble and you see a screen like this, showing more Touch Bar icons in a panel in the lower half of the screen, for you to add to the main Touch Bar setup.

To move a Touch Bar icon from the floating window onto the Touch Bar itself, simply click and drag it down from the screen onto another Touch Bar icon, which it then replaces. To go back to the default icons, drag the Default Set to the Touch Bar.

To remove an icon from the Touch Bar, move your mouse pointer to the Touch Bar and highlight the one you want to delete. Drag it left and the Done button on the Touch Bar becomes a dustbin. Drop it on this to delete it from your Touch Bar. You can add it again later.

If you’d like to use an expanded set of Touch Bar icons, go to the System Preferences pane described in Step 1 and in the Touch Bar shows pull-down menu, select Expanded Control Strip. This gives a much larger set of Touch Bar icons for you to use and customise.

When you’ve finished, either use your mouse pointer to click on Done on the screen or use your finger to tap the Done button on the left hand side of the Touch Bar. Either way, you’re returned to the desktop, with your Touch Bar customised to your requirements.

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Multi-use Touch Bar

Setting Up Touch ID

First of all, make sure the finger you want to register with Touch ID is clean and dry. When you’re ready, open the System Preferences (you can use the Apple menu in the top left corner of the screen to do this) and click on the Touch ID preference pane in the bottom row.

Click on the big plus sign marked ‘Add a fingerprint’ to begin the process of registering a fingerprint. A pop-up window appears, asking you to enter your administrator’s password. Do so and click OK to continue to the next step, which is registering the fingerprint.

You’re now asked to place your finger on the Touch ID scanner, which is found on the right-hand side of the Touch Bar. Do so, following the on-screen instructions to raise and place your finger when requested. When the fingerprint is fully red, you’re finished; click Done.

When you’ve registered a fingerprint, you can choose which services and features you use Touch ID to unlock. You can also add more fingerprints if you wish; just click on the big plus button again and register another finger in exactly the same way as the first.

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Using Touch ID. When you’ve registered at least one fingerprint, you can use Touch ID to unlock your Mac and to make purchases.

You can use Touch ID to unlock your MacBook Pro, instead of entering your admin password. Just place your registered finger on the Touch ID scanner. You can also use it to unlock locked notes, the passwords section in Safari preferences and some System Preferences.

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When making purchases on the App Store, iTunes Store or iBooks Store, you can use your Touch ID instead of your password to confirm your purchase. You can also, of course, use it for the Apple Pay service, which is available on numerous online shopping stores.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

The Siri Feature The Mac’s Digital PA Mac fans had waited for its arrival for a long time but now Siri has come to the Mac. Apple’s digital personal assistant lets you communicate with your computer by speaking, just like you already do with the iPad and iPhone. Let’s take a look at what the Siri digital assistant can do for you and your Mac, and how to make the most of it.

Setting Up Siri

You might have activated Siri during the High Sierra set up procedure. If not, under the Apple menu, select System Preferences. Click on Siri in the bottom row. If it isn’t already ticked, click on Enable Siri, on the left. If you want Siri in the menu bar, check that box too.

You can change the language that Siri understands and also speaks in using the pull-down menu. You can also change the English language voice from a British male to a female voice and a different accent, and set up a keyboard shortcut for Siri if you wish.

To launch Siri, click on the icon in the Dock, click on the menu bar icon if you’ve opted for one or press the keyboard shortcut, again if you have one set up. A Siri window appears in the top right corner of the screen, as you can see here.

Using Siri requires an Internet connection, so your Mac can send your voice message to Apple’s servers to be analysed. If you don’t currently have an Internet connection, you cannot use Siri until you take your Mac back online again.

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The Siri Feature

Using Siri

Siri is great for checking your appointments. You can ask what appointments you have coming up for the rest of the week or month, what’s coming up between two dates, and more. Just ask Siri a question in regular English and it will probably understand you perfectly.

You can send a message using Siri, instead of looking up the person in Contacts and then typing the message itself. Just say, “Send a message to X”, and Siri will find the person and ask what you want to say. Speak your message and you can then check and send it.

Siri can get information from a lot of macOS’s preinstalled apps. For example, you can make calculations and conversions using Siri, which harnesses the power of the Calculator app. Just ask a question in this vein and Siri provides the answer.

Finally, why not have a bit of fun? Try asking “What is zero divided by zero” for an amusing response. Tell Siri you’re drunk and it suggests you call a taxi and ask “How many [anything] does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” for a take on this famous joke.

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Siri Dictation Commands. Siri also understands dictation as well as words, so if you are dictating an email, for instance, this useful list of dictation commands that Siri recognises prove very useful. Just “speak the word” and the action or punctuation is added. “New line”

“No caps on ... no caps

& “Ampersand”

© “Copyright sign”

# “Pound sign”

Move to the next line

off”

*

“Asterisk”

® “Registered sign”

> “Greater than sign”

“New paragraph”

Make sure part of what

(

§ “Section sign”

< “Less than sign”

you say is all lowercase

“Open parenthesis”

Start a new paragraph

)

“Close parenthesis”

/

“Forward slash”

“Space bar”

$ “Dollar sign”

“All caps”

Prevent a hyphen from

[

“Open bracket”

\

“Back slash”

Make the next word all

¢ “Cent sign”

uppercase

appearing in a normally

]

“Close bracket”

£ “Pound Sterling sign”

|

“Vertical bar”

“All caps on ... all caps off”

hyphenated word . “Period”

{

“Open brace”

° “Degree sign”

:-) “Smiley”

}

“Close brace”

^ “Caret”

:-( “Frowny face”

say uppercase

,

“Comma”

-

“Dash”

@ “At sign

;-) “Wink”

“No caps”

’

“Apostrophe”

-

“Hyphen”

Make the next word

!

“Exclamation mark”

̶

“Em dash”

lowercase

? “Question mark”

Make part of what you

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% “Percent sign”

BDM’s – The Complete Mac Manual | 159

How to Get More From Your Mac

Auto Save Feature On Your Mac The Auto Save feature is both user-friendly and powerful. Allowing you to revert to previously saved versions of a document means you should never find yourself in the position of editing a document in error, and then accidentally saving it over the original version. Here’s how to use the feature.

Auto Save Explained

You can rename documents in their own window. Just click on the name of the document in the title bar and select Rename, then type in the new name. You can also duplicate or move the document to iCloud from here.

If at any point you want to revert to the previously saved version of the document you’re working on, go into the File menu, select Revert To and then Previous Save or Last Opened.

You can browse all previous saved versions of the document by going into the File menu, selecting Revert to and then finally clicking on Browse All Versions.

You’ll see a display of all previously saved versions of the document in a cascade. Select the one you want to use and click the Restore button to open it up.

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Auto Save Feature

Power Nap. Power Nap lets your Mac check for emails and updates silently while in Sleep mode. Power Nap is compatible with the following Macs: • MacBook (Early 2015 and later) • MacBook Air (Late 2010 and later) • MacBook Pro (all models with Retina display) • Mac mini (Late 2012 and later) • iMac (Late 2012 and later) • Mac Pro (Late 2013)

You can get a better look at a saved version of your document before restoring it by simply clicking on it to enlarge the window, as shown. This doesn’t commit you to restoring it. You can click on the current version of the document to enlarge that instead or on the desktop outside the documents to return to the screen shown in the previous step.

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If you’re not sure whether your Mac is compatible with Power Nap, open System Preferences and select Energy Saver in the second row.

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You can make a duplicate of the document you’re working on using the keyboard shortcut CMD+SHIFT+S.

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Save a copy of the document you’re working on under a different name using the keyboard shortcut CMD+SHIFT+OPTION+S.

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If your Mac supports Power Nap you’ll see an option to enable it by clicking a checkbox. If you don’t have the option then unfortunately your Mac isn’t compatible.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

The App Switcher Speeds Your Workflow With App Switcher you can toggle between apps that are currently open and running on your Mac without taking your hands off the keyboard. It’s a really great feature that significantly speeds your workflow if you use it on a regular basis. If you don’t use the App Switcher already, you should definitely follow this guide and give it a try.

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The App Switcher is easy to use. Hold the CMD key and press Tab. A window showing the icons of all your open apps is displayed.

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You can toggle through these apps by repeatedly pressing the Tab key and releasing CMD when you’ve highlighted the app you want.

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You can move forwards or backwards through the list of open apps using the arrow keys at the bottom right of your keyboard.

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You can also click on an app icon with your mouse pointer. When you get used to App Switcher, you wonder how you did without it.

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App Switcher & Picture in Picture Feature

Picture in Picture A Space Saving Feature With the macOS Picture in Picture feature, you can float a video window from Safari or iTunes over your desktop or even a full-screen app. This means you can carry on working on whatever it is you’re doing, whilst watching your video at the same time. Here’s how to get the Picture in Picture feature up and running on your Mac.

Picture-in-picture (PiP) won’t work with all web videos. If the website has implemented the feature, when you watch a video a PiP icon appears in the video controls when you hover your pointer over the video.

Click on the PiP icon to watch the video in its own window. You can drag the video window into any corner of the screen. Hover over it and click on the ‘X’ icon to close the separate video window again.

It also works with iTunes videos. Once again, hover over the video window to bring up the video controls, and click on the PiP icon for a floating window. You can watch your movies while doing something else.

The floating video window always sits on top of your on-screen windows, even when you’re using an app in full-screen mode. You can resize the floating video screen by dragging one of its corners too.

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BDM’s – The Complete Mac Manual | 163

Advanced Projects for Your Mac

I

t’s amazing what you can do with your Mac. In this section, we’ve put together a series of projects, such as adding a second screen, using joypads and

other gaming controllers, running Windows and Linux on your Mac and more. They’re great fun and they help you get even more from your Mac.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Contents 166 Running Non-Apple Operating Systems

166 Using Boot Camp



168 Booting into Windows



168 Removing Boot Camp



168 Using Virtualisation



169 Installing a Linux OS

170 Adding a Second Screen to Your Mac

170 Using a Second Monitor



171 Using Your iPad as a Mac Display

172 Adding Joypads and Controllers

172 Connecting an Xbox USB Joypad



173 Using USB Overdrive

174 Accessibility – For Those Impaired

174 Display



174 VoiceOver



174 Zoom



174 Descriptions



175 Captions



175 Mouse & Trackpad



175 Audio



175 Switch Control



175 Keyboard



175 Dictation

176 Formatting Drives – Using Disk Utility 177 The Keyboard – Customised Shortcuts

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BDM’s – The Complete Mac Manual | 165

Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Running Non-Apple Operating Systems Have you switched to Mac but need a Windows PC for a software package that isn’t available on Apple computers, or do you fancy trying Linux? With macOS’s Boot Camp, you can install a Windows operating system on your Mac and dual boot, or even run one of the many available Linux distros. Here’s a guide to how to do it.

Using Boot Camp

To use Boot Camp, you need an Intel-based Mac and at least 20GB of free space. You also need an operating system to install on your Boot Camp partition, of course. For the purposes of this tutorial we’re installing Windows 8, but other versions of Windows can also be installed. You also need a USB drive of at least 8GB that can be reformatted.

Remember, your Mac must also meet the minimum system requirements of the new operating system you’re installing on it. Check the website of the operating system in question if you’re unsure. Here we’re installing Microsoft Windows 8, so we checked the system requirements at www.bit.ly/2uDb2Dx.

Boot Camp Assistant is found in Applications > Utilities. You can also open it using the Launchpad. Just click on the Launchpad icon in the dock, or do the thumb-and-three-finger pinch on your trackpad. When Launchpad appears, type ‘Boot Camp’ in the search field at the top of the screen as shown here. You could also open Boot Camp Assistant by typing it into Spotlight. The choice is yours.

Boot Camp Assistant’s introduction window offers some good advice. Make sure you’ve backed up your hard drive before you try to partition it and install Windows. That way, if anything goes wrong you’re not facing disaster. If you’re using a notebook computer such as a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air, connect it to the mains instead of using its battery power.

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Running Non-Apple Operating Systems

Click Continue, and you’re given the chance to download the latest Windows support files from Apple (you should), and to install Windows 7 or later (whether you check this box depends on which version you’re installing). Choose your options, make sure your USB drive is inserted and then click on Continue again to proceed. Windows support software is downloaded to this drive.

If you get a message saying the external drive cannot be used as it’s not correctly formatted, open Disk Utility (from Applications > Utilities), click on the drive in the side bar, and from the Format pull-down select MS-DOS (FAT). Click on Erase, and the drive is wiped clean and reformatted. Go back to Boot Camp Assistant and press Continue. The Windows support software is downloaded.

When instructed, type your admin password. If you’re installing from a DVD, insert the Windows OS disc now. If you don’t have an optical drive on your Mac, use an external one. Apple’s own USB Super Drive is ideal, though there are cheaper third-party alternatives if you’re on a budget. When you’re ready, press Continue again.

Now set up the size of your Windows partition. How much of your hard drive space do you want to give to Windows and its associated applications? The default is the bare minimum, 20GB, but if you want to give it more, move the slider. If you want an equal split, click on the Divide Equally button.

Click on the Install button and follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows. The partition is created and installation starts. When asked where you want to install Windows, select the Boot Camp partition. Click Advanced Options, then opt to format the partition. The task is automatically carried out and installation continues.

After several restarts your Mac boots up into Windows. You have to select a few options to set it up, just as you would an off-the-shelf Windows PC; but when you’re done, you have Windows on your Mac! You can install software, configure your settings and generally treat it exactly as if it were a Windows PC.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Booting into Windows

Removing Boot Camp

To choose which operating system to use when you start up your Mac, hold the ALT key while it boots. You get a screen offering you a choice of boot disks. From this screen you can select Windows or Mac OS, using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Press Enter after making your selection.

Back up your hard drive before doing this. Open Boot Camp Assistant once more, and press Continue on the opening screen. As you can see, the option to install Windows has now become an option to remove it. Check the Remove Windows box, but uncheck the option to download the latest support software from Apple. Press Continue.

To change the operating system that boots by default - that is, if you start up your Mac without holding the ALT key - open System Preferences and select Startup Disk. You can then make your choice from the operating systems on offer, as shown. The one you select is the one that boots on restart.

On the next screen, you’re told that your hard drive will be restored to a single volume. The Windows partition and its contents will be erased. Press Restore and enter your admin password when instructed. The process takes a while, so don’t worry if the progress bar doesn’t seem to be moving. When it’s finished, the Windows partition is gone.

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Using Virtualisation. Virtualisation is a more elegant way of running non-Apple operating systems. But what is it and how does it work? Virtualisation is an alternative to dual booting your Mac. It works by running the second operating system on a virtual machine from within macOS. Using software such as Parallels Desktop (shown here) or VMware Fusion, you can run Windows and Linux operating systems and software without leaving High Sierra. You can even install a macOS or OS X virtual machine so that you can run Sierra, El Capitan or an even older Mac operating System alongside High Sierra.

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Running Non-Apple Operating Systems

Installing a Linux OS

First we must download a Linux operating system installer. We’re going to use Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com), one of the most popular versions of Linux available. Make sure you download the correct one for your Mac. We’re going for the regular 64-bit image. Ubuntu is free, and you’re quite entitled to download it from the Internet and install it on however many computers you wish.

You now need a flash drive of at least 2GB. Make sure there’s nothing important on it, so it can be erased. Use Disk Utility to reformat it as an MS-DOS FAT drive (see Step 6 earlier in this tutorial). The easiest way to create a bootable Linux flash drive is to download the utility Mac Linux USB Loader (http://sevenbits.github.io/Mac-Linux-USB-Loader). Launch the application.

Double-click on Create Live USB; and in the Finder window that appears, navigate to your downloaded Ubuntu iso and click on Open. Choose the flash drive you want to turn into a bootable USB drive; then press Next. Press Begin Installation, and follow the on-screen instructions to install Ubuntu on the USB drive. You’re told when it’s done.

You must now partition your hard drive. Open Disk Utility and select your main hard drive in the left-hand column. Select the Partition tab and click the ‘+’ button under the Partition Layout window. Click on Macintosh HD 2 and resize it by dragging the divider up and down, or simply by entering the size of the partition you want in the Size window.

Now it’s time to reboot using the flash drive installer you created earlier. Restart your Mac holding down the Alt key, until you get to the grey screen showing the boot drives. Choose the USB drive called EFI Boot, navigating to it with your keyboard’s arrow keys and selecting it with Enter. You get shown some boot options. Choose to Boot Linux from ISO File. Follow the on-screen instructions until you get to the Linux desktop.

If you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, you might need to use USB peripherals at this stage. Open the disk icon called Install Ubuntu and follow the instructions. When asked if you want to unmount disk partitions, decline. For Installation Type, choose Something Else; then choose the boot partition (identify it by size). Double-click the partition, then select Use as: Ext4 journaling file system and Mount Point ‘/’. In the Device for Boot Loader Installation pull-down, select /dev/sda1. Click OK. Check Format the Partition. Double click the small partition called /dev/ sda1, and set the Use as: pull-down to EFI Boot Partition. Click OK. Press Install Now and follow the on-screen instructions.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Adding a Second Screen to Your Mac Studies have shown that a second screen can increase your productivity by between 20 and 50 per cent. You can work on your main screen while storing secondary windows and menus on your second, keep two working apps visible at once or use your second display for iTunes. Here’s how to set up and use a second screen.

Using a Second Monitor

You can add a second display to both notebook and desktop Macs, regardless of whether the Mac itself has a built-in screen. These can be Apple displays, or third-party monitors from manufacturers other than Apple. They can be any size too. With most Macs, you can even add a third or fourth monitor if you wish.

Before you choose your second monitor, check what ports it offers, and make sure you have the correct ports on your Mac. You might need an adapter cable, which are available from your local Apple Store. With the right adapter cable, almost any modern monitor will work with a recent Mac.

If your Mac has a Thunderbolt port, you can daisy chain Thunderbolt monitors by plugging one Thunderbolt display into your Mac, and a second into the first Thunderbolt display. Remember, you can also plug a Mini Display Port monitor into your Mac’s Thunderbolt port, though plugging a Mini Display Port monitor into a Thunderbolt display’s Thunderbolt port will not work.

Having connected your second display, it’s time to set it up. Open System Preferences, and click on Displays. Click on the Arrangement tab. Under the main graphic window, you see an option to Mirror Displays. If you check this box, the two screens show the same thing – the second is an exact copy of the first. You can add this option to the menu bar too, by checking the box at the foot of the window.

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Adding a Second Screen to Your Mac

If you don’t use the Mirrored Displays option, you can set the screen arrangement how you wish. The second screen can be dragged into any position around the first, and their shared border is where you can drag the mouse pointer off one display and onto the other. If they’re joined on the right-hand side of the main screen, for example, you can drag the pointer off the right-hand side of your primary screen and onto the left-hand side of your secondary display.

Do you want your second monitor to offer a completely separate desktop, or to be an extension of your main display’s desk space? The control for this one is found in System Preferences > Mission Control. The last option in the checkbox list at the top of the window is ‘Displays have separate Spaces’. Check it to treat the second screen as a separate desktop; leave it unchecked for one big desktop across two displays. You have to log out and in again every time you make a change.

In System Preferences > Displays, under the Display tab, there’s an option called ‘Rotation’. This offers a pull-down menu that lets you rotate the screen 90, 180 or 270 degrees. If you have a monitor that can be turned into a vertical orientation, or some sort of a stand that lets you mount the screen upside down, this option sets the screen so it’s the right way up for your display.

Go back to System Preferences > Displays, and click on the Arrangement tab. As you can see, the menu bar is only represented on your primary monitor. If you want to swap your display screens, so the secondary monitor becomes the primary one and vice versa, simply drag this menu bar onto the other display. The two screens’ contents are swapped.

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Using Your iPad as a Mac Display. With a third-party app, it’s possible to use your iPad as a second screen for your Mac. Here’s how.

I

t’s possible to use your iPad as a second screen with your Mac. There are several apps for this on the App Store, of which Air Display is one of the most popular. Go to avatron.com/applications/air-display and download and install the free Mac client (restart required). On the App Store, buy and download Air Display 3 (it’s £9.99). Open the iPad app and you get a screen saying ‘Waiting for Computer’ every time you make a change.

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On your Mac, click on the Air Display icon in the menu bar, and select your iPad. Click on the Connect button. Your iPad becomes an external monitor for your Mac. When you go into System Preferences > Displays and click the Arrangement tab, the iPad is shown as one of your monitors. Note: As Air Display uses a wireless connection between your Mac and your iPad, the two devices have to be on the same network.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Adding Joypads and Controllers If you enjoy playing games on your Mac and want to use a controller to play your favourite titles, there are several options available to you. Here we show you how to set up and connect an Xbox 360 joypad with High Sierra, and also how to install a third-party application that lets you use almost any USB controller on your Mac.

Connecting an Xbox USB Joypad The Xbox 360 joypad is a popular game controller for home computers but you need to install a Mac driver before you can use one.

Download the latest version of the 360Controller driver, from www. bit.ly/2w6UFzk. We’re going to set up and use the USB version of the joypad, but it also works with the wireless version as long as you have the Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows plugged into your Mac.

Open the downloaded disk image, then run the installer. Follow the on-screen instructions, and install the driver. It takes only 1MB of space. You need to enter your admin password during the installation, and when it’s done you have to restart your computer.

After the restart, open your System Preferences. You see there’s a new one – ‘Xbox 360 Controllers’, found in the bottom row of your System Preferences. Plug in your Xbox 360 joypad, and click on the Xbox 360 Controllers preference pane to open it.

The preference pane for the Xbox 360 joypad shows a graphical representation of the joypad itself. Test it by plugging it in and using its buttons, joysticks and D-pad. The on-screen graphic shows that they’re working. There are options you can change on this screen too.

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Adding Joypads and Controllers

Whether the Xbox 360 joypad works with a particular title depends on whether the programmers have included Xbox 360 joypad compatibility in the game. Thankfully, plenty of modern Mac games do. Here we see a popular Steam game’s configuration screen for the Xbox 360 controller.

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You can sometimes reconfigure a game’s keyboard or joypad controls to work with your Xbox 360 pad, even if it isn’t mentioned by name. Just go through the usual key mapping options for the game in question and, for instance, when defining a key for ‘up’, press the joystick up. When choosing a key for ‘fire’, press one of your joypad’s buttons.

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Using USB Overdrive. If you want to use an incompatible controller with your Mac, this inexpensive shareware application might be what you need.

USB Overdrive is a device driver that supports any USB or Bluetooth mouse, keyboard, trackball, joystick, gamepad or gaming device from any manufacturer. It also lets you configure your controller, globally or on a per-application, per-device basis. Download it from www.usboverdrive.com and install.

When you’ve installed USB Overdrive, it’s configured by opening its System Preference pane. Open it, and you can configure it for a gaming peripheral such as a joypad or a mouse that doesn’t offer native Mac controls. It has to be a USB controller, not a wireless one. To start, select the peripheral in question from the pull-down menu as shown.

With the USB Overdrive panel open, clicking on a button or other such input on your device adds it to the list of buttons the preference can control. If nothing happens, the device is using a non-standard protocol, and cannot be controlled with USB Overdrive.

By duplicating a device’s universal settings, that is, the settings they use on any application, you can custom configure them for specific apps. Start with the universal settings, and then customise those controls for the software in question.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Accessibility For Those Impaired A modern Mac has a lot to offer those with disabilities. Its Accessibility Options make life easier for people with poor vision, hearing or motor skills. There are all sorts of modifications to make your computer more user-friendly; just open System Preferences and select the Accessibility pane, then follow this guide.

Display: If you struggle with your screen as it is, click on Display in the

VoiceOver:  VoiceOver is the Mac’s text-to-speech facility that tells you

Zoom: You can set keyboard shortcuts to zoom into the screen, and modify and customise this zoom feature to suit your needs. Experiment with the settings and options until you find what’s right for you.

Descriptions:  Switch this on for a spoken description of the visual

left-hand column and you can modify it by inverting the colours as shown, switching to greyscale, increasing the contrast or cursor size, and more.

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exactly what’s happening on your Mac. You can toggle it on or off, and with the VoiceOver Utility also shown here, customise it to suit your needs.

content in movies, TV programmes and other media. These descriptions aren’t always available, but they can help the visually impaired.

Accessibility

Captions:  macOS apps such as iTunes, QuickTime and DVD Player are compatible with Closed Captioning. If a movie or TV show you’re renting or buying has a CC icon, you can watch it with customisable captions.

Mouse & Trackpad:  If you have trouble using a mouse or trackpad, check the box here and use the numeric keys to move your pointer. As always, there are plenty of options to configure this Accessibility feature too.

Audio:  For the hard of hearing, there are a couple of options available in the Audio section. You can make the screen flash when you get an audio alert, and play stereo sound as mono if your hearing is weak in one ear.

Switch Control:  With this option you can turn mouse buttons, keys, game controllers and other input devices into switches to control your Mac. You need to type your administrator password before activating it.

Keyboard:  For those with weak hands, Sticky Keys lets you use keyboard shortcuts without holding down keys. Slow Keys sets a delay between a key being pressed and its action. Both features can be customised with the Options button.

Dictation:  Finally, Dictation lets you control your computer using

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speech. Don’t forget you can check the box at the bottom of this Preference Pane to access activated Accessibility options from the menu bar too.

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Advanced Projects for Your Mac

Formatting Drives Using Disk Utility Sometimes, you might need to completely wipe a hard drive or flash drive, removing all the data and information on it. For this, macOS High Sierra has the Disk Utility application. You can use it to wipe a drive clean, and also to reformat it using a different file format. Here’s a guide to how to do these things in the Disk Utility application.

Launch Disk Utility, which is found in Applications > Utilities. When you’ve launched the app, click on the drive you need to format in the left-hand column. We’ve chosen to reformat the drive itself, but we could reformat its volume instead (currently called ‘untitled’). As there’s only one volume on the drive, it doesn’t really matter which we do. Note: reformatting deletes all files on the drive or volume in question, so make sure you’ve backed up anything you want to keep.

Click Erase on the toolbar. Choose a file format for the new drive. ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled)’ is the Mac’s standard format; you must choose this if you’re trying to create a bootable drive. ‘Case-sensitive’ lets you put files with the same name but different capitalisation in the same folder; for example, ‘Pic.jpg’ would not overwrite ‘pic. jpg’. It can cause problems with some applications and isn’t recommended unless you definitely need case sensitivity. An Encrypted option lets you set a protective password, without which the drive cannot be accessed.

If you want to swap files between a Mac and a PC, or use the drive connected to a peripheral such as a TV or MP3 player that doesn’t recognise Mac formatted drives, use MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT. MS-DOS (FAT) is widely recognised but is limited to files of up to 4GB in size. ExFAT doesn’t have this limitation but it’s not as widely used in peripherals such as media players. Whichever format you choose, enter a name for your new drive in the Name field, then press the Erase button.

Macs can natively read from drives formatted as NTFS but cannot write to them. By installing Paragon Software’s NTFS for Mac (www. paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac) your Mac can read, write and format drives as NTFS. It’s great for sharing files of any size with PCs and is widely recognised by media devices too. If, for example, you want to put a HD movie on a flash drive and then plug it into your TV’s USB port to watch it on the TV, an NTFS drive might be the only possible solution.

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Formatting Drives & Customising Keyboard Shortcuts

The Keyboard Customised Shortcuts Keyboard shortcuts such as CMD-P to print, CMD-X to cut and CMD-V to paste can save you lots of time and increase your productivity. In macOS High Sierra you can even configure your own. Here’s how to add some new keyboard shortcuts, to save time and to automate things you do a lot on your desktop or notebook Mac.

First, open System Preferences, which is found under the Apple menu in the top-left corner. Click on Keyboard, and then the Shortcuts tab. You see a window like the one shown here. Categories of shortcut are shown in the left-hand column, and the shortcuts themselves in the right.

Shortcuts that are active are checked, and those that are inactive are unchecked. Looking at the Mission Control shortcuts here, we see shortcuts for Show Notification Center and Switch to Desktop 1 or 2 are unchecked. If you want to use them, click on the respective box to their left to activate them.

You can change the default keyboard command if you wish. Just click on the shortcut in question, then click on the key combination and type/press your new one. If you get a warning symbol - a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark - it’s because that particular shortcut is already in use. Here, for example, we assigned SHIFT-CMD-3 to a display control, when it’s already used for taking desktop screenshots.

You can add keyboard shortcuts to any app currently installed on your Mac. Select App Shortcuts in the left-hand column, click the ‘+’ button and select your app. Under Menu Title, you must enter the EXACT name used in the app’s pull-down menu, then enter your keyboard shortcut in the bottom field. If you change your mind, press the Restore Defaults button to go back to how they were before you started.

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How to Get More From Your Mac

Taking Care of Your Mac

M

acs are very reliable but what do you do if something goes wrong? In this section we take a look at various things you can do to keep your Mac up and

running, and in tip-top shape. We show you how to extend your laptop’s battery life, how to speed up a Mac and how to solve the most common problems.

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Contents 180 Extending Your Notebook’s Battery Life

180 Turn Down the Screen Brightness



180 Turn Time Machine Off



180 Silence the Notifications



180 Energy Saver Preferences



181 Check Activity Monitor



181 Turn Off Location Services



181 Turn Bluetooth Off



181 Turn Wi-Fi Off



181 Disconnect Unused Peripherals



181 Using Significant Energy

182 Rescuing Deleted Files on Your Mac

182 Finding and Recovering Deleted Files



183 Recover Using Time Machine

184 Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Mac

184 Buy Well



184 Slim Boot Drive



184 Use Activity Monitor



185 Trim Login Items



185 Close Apps and Tabs



185 Dashboard Tips



185 Check Browser Extensions



185 Useful Applications



185 Check Browser Extensions



185 HomePlug AV Networking

186 Maintenance and Troubleshooting

186 Clearing a Frozen Screen



187 If Your Mac Won’t Start



188 Problems with Wi-Fi



189 Reset NVRAM or SMC

190 Keyboard Shortcuts 192 Glossary of Mac and Computing Terms www.bdmpublications.com

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Extending Your Notebook’s Battery Life Modern Mac notebooks have a very good battery life. Indeed, they should last all day on a single charge. Even so, there comes a time when you’re running low on power and need to keep your MacBook going, but what can you do? Follow these simple tips and you can squeeze every ounce of energy from your notebook battery.

Turn Down the Screen Brightness: You can reduce how much power your screen uses by turning down the brightness. You can use the function keys or touch bar or open System Preferences, go to the Displays preference pane and use the Brightness slider.

Turn Time Machine Off:  Time Machine backups also use power. If

Silence the Notifications: Incoming notifications can have an adverse effect on battery life. Click the three-lined icon in the top right corner to open the notifications panel and click the Notifications tab at the top. Pull the panel down to reveal the Do Not Disturb switch, and activate it.

Energy Saver Preferences:  Open up System Preferences, then

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you’re running low, consider turning it off until you get to a charger. In System Preferences, open Time Machine and uncheck Back Up Automatically. Don’t forget to turn it on again when your battery is charged.

Energy Saver. There are a number of tweaks you can make here, including dimming the screen on battery power, turning off the display quicker whilst the notebook is idle and turning off the Power Nap feature.

Extending Your Notebook’s Battery Life

Check Activity Monitor: Activity Monitor is found in Applications >

Turn Off Location Services:  Location Services uses power

Turn Bluetooth Off: If you’re not currently using Bluetooth, turn it off. In System Preferences, go to Bluetooth and click the Turn Bluetooth Off button. You won’t be able to use Bluetooth peripherals such as wireless headphones until you turn it on again but it saves energy.

Turn Wi-Fi Off:  If you’re not using it, you can turn Wi-Fi off by clicking on the its icon in the menu bar and selecting Turn Wi-Fi Off. Obviously, you won’t be able to use the Internet until you switch it on again but it saves battery power if you can do without it.

Disconnect Unused Peripherals: Connected peripherals also use battery power. If you have a peripheral connected and don’t currently need it, unplug it. If you’re working on files stored on an external hard drive, consider moving them to your MacBook and disconnecting the drive.

Using Significant Energy:  Finally, there’s a useful way of seeing which open applications are using significant energy. Just click the battery in the menu bar. Close anything that’s hogging your battery power and obviously, shut down anything you don’t need to keep open too.

Utilities. If you simply click the Energy tab and then the Energy Impact header, you can order the list of apps according to how much energy they’re using. Turn off anything that’s using more than it should.

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because it uses Wi-Fi connections to locate its current position. To switch it off, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy, click the Privacy tab then click the lock and put in your password. Uncheck Enable Location Services.

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Rescuing Deleted Files on Your Mac We’ve all done it. We’ve all deleted a file from our hard drive or portable storage device, and then found we needed it after all. Luckily, help is at hand. With the correct software you can recover deleted files, or data stored on a corrupt or failing drive. Here’s how to rescue a file with the popular Mac Data Recovery Guru application.

Finding and Recovering Deleted Files

To recover deleted files, you need an app designed for the task. We’re going to use Mac Data Recovery Guru (http://bit.ly/1Dg8Uiq) as it’s very capable and easy to use. But other applications are available, such as File Salvage, Disk Drill and Data Rescue 4.

Download and install Mac Data Recovery Guru. The free, unregistered version can search your hard drive and external storage for previously deleted files; but to recover files, you need to register it. Follow the link in the top right corner to do so.

From the list in the left column, choose the drive or volume from which you want to recover files. It includes all currently connected external storage drives as well as your main hard drive. Press Start Scan in the bottom left corner. Type your admin password to proceed.

The application scans your chosen drive or volume for deleted files, and possibly regular files too, depending on the option chosen at the foot of the middle column (see Step 8). You might want to enlarge the window for a bigger preview column, as we’ve done here.

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Rescuing Deleted Files

When the scan has completed, the window looks like this. In the second column from the left, there’s a list of file types found on your drive or volume. Click on one, and a column appears showing individual files of that type. Click on a file and you get a preview of it.

When you find the file you’re looking for, you can recover it by pressing the Recover button in the bottom-right corner of the window. This is only available when you’ve purchased Mac Data Recovery Guru. You can choose where on your hard drive the recovered file is saved.

The recovered files are found in a folder called ‘Mac Data Recovery Guru Recovered Files’. You can recover more than one file at a time by holding CMD as you select them, or recover every file in a given category by highlighting the file type instead of the individual file. If you highlight the drive or volume, everything on it is recovered.

Use ‘Search for deleted files only’ if you’ve deleted a file you need. ‘Search for deleted and regular files’ looks for all files, deleted or otherwise, and is ideal for recovering data from a drive that’s corrupt or failing. ‘Search for embedded files’ looks for files contained within other files, for example, jpegs embedded in PDFs.

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Recover Using Time Machine. If you back up using Time Machine, there’s an easy way of recovering deleted files. This is how you go about recovering it.

To recover a file from your Time Machine backup, first find the folder in which it was originally stored and open it. Now click on the Time Machine menulet as shown, and select Enter Time Machine. You’re taken to the Time Machine interface with the open folder shown.

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Scroll back through your backups using the arrows to the right of the window and the dateline on the right of the screen, until you find the file you deleted or damaged in some way. Press Restore and it’s placed back where it was before it was deleted.

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Mac There are all sorts of things you can do to make your Mac run faster and many of them just need a little straightforward tinkering with your software. Here we cover some of the best and simplest things you can do to get your computer up to speed once more. It’s amazing what you can do to speed up your Mac.

Buy Well If you’re likely to use your Mac for high performance tasks like video editing or graphics rendering, consider buying from the Apple Online Store and add a little more memory. Modern Mac’s have their memory chips soldered onto the logic board, so you can’t add more memory after you’ve bought it. Make sure you have enough to begin with. It’s simple to do. Go to the Apple website and choose which model of Mac you wish to buy. Click on the Buy button and you’ll be taken to a screen like this one, where you can customise your purchase to suit your individual requirements. Extra memory or a faster processor could prove to be money well spent.

Use Activity Monitor. In the Applications > Utilities folder is an app called Activity Monitor. This shows what processes are currently running on your Mac, and what system resources they’re using. Choose a specific resource by clicking one of the buttons in the toolbar. These are CPU,Memory, Energy, Disk and Network respectively. After choosing a resource in this way, you can reorder the list you’re offered by clicking on the headers at the top of the window (look for Process Names in the top left: it’s this strip). For example, in the Memory section, if you want to know which apps are consuming the most memory, click on the Memory process name and they’re ordered accordingly. Clicking more than once toggles the order from high to low and vice versa. If you find an app or process that’s consuming far more resources than you think it deserves, you can close it directly from Activity monitor. Simply click on it to highlight it, then click the ‘X’ button in the top left corner. Make sure you’ve saved any documents you’re working on before doing so. Quitting and reopening an app can greatly reduce the resources it’s consuming, so if your Mac is slowing down, it’s definitely worth checking Activity Monitor.

If you buy your Mac notebook from the Apple Online Store, you can opt for more memory or a faster processor, giving you a speedier Mac.

Slim Boot Drive While on the subject of your hard drive, your Mac uses it as virtual memory, to temporarily store information used by the processor. The fuller your drive, the less room there is for the Mac to do this, which can slow it down severely. Make sure your boot drive - that is, the Mac’s main drive containing the operating system - isn’t more than three-quarters full. If it is, consider moving some files such as movies or data to an external drive.

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If your Mac is getting sluggish, it’s worth checking Activity Monitor to make sure an app or process isn’t hogging too many resources.

Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Mac

Trim Login Items Something that can really slow down your Mac’s boot time is running too many Login Items. These are the applications and processes that load automatically when you switch on your Mac, and include helpers and agents for programs such as Dropbox, iTunes and Stickies. The more Login Items you have, the longer it takes to boot your Mac. To remove Login Items, open System Preferences (under the Apple menu) and click on Users & Groups. Highlight the current user in the left-hand column; and in the right, click on a Login Item you no longer need. Now click on the minus sign at the foot of this window to remove it.

Dashboard Tips Apple has become less interested in the Dashboard and its widgets with every recent version of the operating system; so much so that in the latest releases, the Dashboard is switched off by default (open System Preferences and go to Mission Control to switch it on). If you use the Dashboard, every open widget cuts into your Mac’s resources, so switching off those you don’t need is a good way to speed up your Mac. Go to the Dashboard and click on the minus sign in the bottom-left corner; then close selected widgets by clicking on the relevant ‘X’ icons that appear. Or if you’re running a pre-El Capitan version of OS X but never use the Dashboard, go into Mission Control as described earlier and switch it off.

Useful Applications There are several useful applications for keeping your Mac in tip-top condition. In Applications > Utilities you’ll find Activity Monitor, which shows all the running processes on your Mac. If something’s hogging resources, you can force-quit it from this app too. iStat Menus is a great way to monitor your Mac - including memory usage, CPU resources and processes. And CleanMyMac is a very user-friendly way of sorting out your computer. You can sweep away system and iPhoto junk, look for large files you haven’t used in a while and delete them, clean-uninstall applications and perform several other useful maintenance tasks.

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Close Apps and Tabs. You should also refrain from having too many applications open at the same time. Remember, closing an app window doesn’t close the application itself. It’s still running, and using precious resources. If your Mac seems to have slowed down, it’s a good idea to go to your Dock and quit out of a few. You should soon notice a speed improvement. Too many open browser tabs can cause the same problems for your web surfing as too many open apps does for your Mac as a whole. Although modern web browsers handle multiple open sites much better than they used to, having too many tabs open can still cause stutters and hangs. If this is happening to you, just close a few tabs. It usually improves matters. It’s also a good idea to clear your browser cache every now and then, getting rid of the accumulated junk that builds up over time. To do this in Safari, open Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. Check the box at the bottom that says Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar; and then from this new Develop menu, select Empty Caches.

Check Browser Extensions If your web browser is really misbehaving badly, it might be that you’ve installed an extension that’s not working properly. In Safari, open the Preferences again, and click on Extensions. Turn them off one by one until you find the rogue extension; simply click on an extension in the left-hand column, and in the right-hand window uncheck the box that says ‘Enable [Extension Name]’. When you’ve found the one that’s causing problems, delete it by clicking its Uninstall button. You can try downloading it again to see if it was a damaged install causing problems.

HomePlug AV Networking. Finally, if you’ve a problem with your Wi-Fi network not reaching the corners of your house, or struggling to cope with thick, heavy walls, consider using HomePlug AV networking. These devices use your house’s electrical wiring as virtual Ethernet cables, and can prove more stable than Wi-Fi.

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Maintenance and Troubleshooting Macs are well known for their stability and reliability, but even so, things can and do occasionally go wrong. Don’t panic though, we’ve put together a guide to solving some of the most common issues you might have on your Mac. So if you’re having trouble, take a look at these tips. They might save you a trip to the Apple Store. Modern computers like the Mac are amongst the most complicated machines ever designed. When you consider just how complex they are and how many lines of code go to make up the programs that run on them, it’s an amazing testament to the quality of the Mac hardware and software that they’re usually so stable and reliable. However, no machine, even a really well made one, can ever be 100 per cent perfect. If something goes wrong with your Mac: if it stops working, the screen freezes up, there’s a problem with the battery, the hard disk or the operating system and apps installed on it, you don’t always need to call the Genius Bar to get it fixed. There are a number of things you can try for yourself that might help and could save you the cost of a service call; so let’s take a look at some of the things that can go wrong and what you can do about them.

Clearing a Frozen Screen

Press CMD+OPT+Esc or choose Apple menu > Force Quit from the menu bar. The Force Quit window appears. If the app is identified as ‘not responding’, select it and click Force Quit. The app quits.If you still have problems, try restarting your Mac. Under the Apple menu, choose Restart. Your open windows reopen if you check the box in the pop-up.

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If the problem occurs only when you use a particular application, try updating it. Open the App Store and check for updates or use the option in the app’s menu on the top bar, found next to the Apple menu. If you still have problems with that app, try reinstalling it. Drag it into the trash, empty the trash then reinstall the app.

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Maintenance and Troubleshooting

If Your Mac Won’t Start If your Mac fails to start or it won’t finish booting up, try these simple fixes to get you back up and running once more.

Make sure the power cable or adapter is plugged into your Mac and a mains power outlet and make sure your mains electricity is working. This sounds silly but you’d be surprised how many people call computer service centres during a power cut.

For notebooks, check whether the battery needs to be charged. Plug it into the mains. If the light on the power adapter glows amber, it’s charging. Let it charge up for about 30 minutes and then try starting it up again. You should only use the charger that came with your Mac.

Again for notebooks, if the charger fails to start charging or simply stops charging, and you don’t see the indicator light on the power adapter turn on when you plug in the power cord, try unplugging and replugging the power cord to reseat the MagSafe plug.

If the problem persists and you can find no way of fixing it, book a Genius Bar appointment at your local Apple Store. Here Apple’s team of experts can talk you through the problem and if they can’t solve it, they can advise as to whether a repair is needed.

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Using the Recovery Drive. If you’re having trouble booting up your Mac, help is at hand. Recent versions of OS X and macOS have their own Recovery Drive.

If your Mac begins to start up but won’t finish, maybe stopping on the grey screen or giving you a folder with a question mark on it, try rebooting from the Recovery Drive. Press the power button to turn off the Mac, then turn it on again whilst pressing the Alt button.

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When the boot drives appear on the screen, use the arrow keys to select the Recovery HD and press Enter to boot it. Your Mac boots but with limited functionality. When it’s done, use the Apple menu to restart your Mac again in the normal way and it should boot normally.

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Problems with Wi-Fi

Use Disk Utility

Wi-Fi is usually very reliable, but sometimes problems do occur. If you’re having connectivity issues, here’s how to troubleshoot it.

The Mac’s Disk Utility application can do much to diagnose and even repair problems with drives. Here’s how to use it.

First make sure the router you’re trying to connect to is switched on and has a wireless access point. Usually there are indicator lights on the front that tell you this, so check in the manual. If there seems to be a problem, restart your router by switching it off and on again.

You can find your Disk Utility app in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. Or just open Launchpad, the silver Dock icon with the space ship, and launch Disk Utility from there. On the Launchpad screen, Disk Utility is found in the folder marked ‘Other’.

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Check the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar. It can have up to four bars indicating signal strength. If signal strength is low, try moving closer to the router. Remember, the signal can be blocked by thick walls or other obstructions, so moving around in the room might help.

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Click on the drive you wish to check and then press the First Aid button. Disk Utility’s First Aid feature then checks your disk for errors and if necessary, repairs and corrects them. This process might take some time if you haven’t run First Aid recently.

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If you’re still having problems, go to the Apple menu and open System Preferences. Click on Network and select your Wi-Fi connection. Then press the Assist Me button at the foot of the screen, to diagnose and hopefully solve your connection issues.

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When you’re done, click the triangle next to Show Details to see what was repaired. Please note that you can also run First Aid from the Recovery HD (see Using the Recovery Drive earlier in this feature). This might be necessary if you’re having difficulties booting your Mac.

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Maintenance and Troubleshooting

Boot into Safe Mode:  Booting into Safe Mode, sometimes called a

‘safe boot’, runs an automatic startup check and can repair problems. Restart your Mac whilst holding the Shift key. Enter your password and the Mac checks your disks (it might take a while). When it’s done, reboot your Mac.

Ejecting an Optical Disk:  If you have an older MacBook that still

has a CD/DVD drive and a disc gets stuck, shut down your MacBook. Boot it up again with the mouse button or trackpad button held down. This forces the optical drive to eject a stuck disc during the startup sequence.

Reset NVRAM. Resetting the NVRAM, also called PRAM, can solve a range of problems and it’s easy to do. If your Mac is misbehaving, follow these steps.

NVRAM stores information such as speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk solution and more. If you’re having problems with any of these things, try resetting your NVRAM. First of all, you must shut down your Mac in the usual way.

Turn on your Mac and as soon as you hear the startup chime, press and hold the CMD+OPT+P+R keys. The computer restarts once more and you hear a second startup chime. At this point, release the keys and let your computer restart as normal.

Reset the SMC. Your Mac’s SMC (System Management Controller) deals with hardware issues. Here’s how to reset it if things are going wrong. If your Mac is displaying minor hardware issues such as fans running at high speed or expansion ports not working, try resetting the SMC. For a desktop computer, turn it off and unplug it from the mains. Wait 15 seconds, then plug it in and power it up again. For a notebook Mac, unplug its charger and power it off. Plug the charger back in again, then press and hold Shift+Control+Option on the left side of the notebook’s keyboard and also the power button. Release all the buttons and then press power again to start up your MacBook.

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Keyboard Shortcuts While Apple’s classic pointer-driven interface is great for pretty much everything, you can make using your Mac even more quick and efficient by memorising a few simple keyboard shortcuts. The macOS has dozens of pre-configured keyboard shortcuts. Here are some of the most useful and most used shortcuts on your Mac.

Finder Shortcuts

File and Folder Shortcuts

These shortcuts are available when you’re using Sierra’s Finder features, like windows and folders.

You can cut, copy, paste, duplicate, open files and folders directly from the keyboard, using these handy shortcuts.

Command + [ ��������������������������������� Go to the previous folder Command + ] ��������������������������������� Go to the next folder Command + ↑ ������������������������������ Navigate up one level Command + ↓ ������������������������������ Navigate down one level Option + Double click ����������������� Open the selected folder in a new window and close the current window Command + Double click ����������� Open selected folder in a new tab Command + Tab ���������������������������� Cycle forward through your opened applications Command + Shift + Tab �������������� Cycle backward through your opened applications Space �������������������������������������������������� Launch Quick Look Command + A �������������������������������� Select all items in Finder Command + Option + A �������������� Deselect any selected items Command + N �������������������������������� Open new Finder window Command + Shift + K ������������������ Open Network window Command + I ��������������������������������� Get info on an item Command + J ��������������������������������� Show view options Command + Option + Esc ��������� Force quit an application Command + Delete ��������������������� Move the selected item to Trash

Command + Shift + Delete �������� Empty Trash Command + drag file/folder ����� Move the selected item to another location Option + drag file/folder ������������ Copy item to another location Command + L �������������������������������� Make alias of selected items Command + D �������������������������������� Duplicate the selected item Command + C �������������������������������� Copy the selected item Command + X �������������������������������� Cut the selected item Command + V �������������������������������� Paste copied/cut item Command + Z �������������������������������� Undo action Command + Shift + N ����������������� Create new folder Command + Option + N ������������� Create new Smart folder Command + O �������������������������������� Open the selected item Shift + Command + / �������������������� Show the Help menu Command + , ����������������������������������� Open App Preferencer

Common Application Shortcuts

Function + F10 ����������������������������� See all Application windows Function + F11 - ����������������������������� Show the Desktop Option + Command + D ������������ Toggle Dock On/Off Control + ← ������������������������������������ Move to space on left

Not every application supports every one of these shortcuts, but where they do, they come in very useful. Command + ` ��������������������������������� Cycle through open App windows Command + H �������������������������������� Hide the current window Command + Option + H ������������� Hide all open windows Command + M �������������������������������� Minimise the current window Command + Option + M ������������ Minimise all windows Command + W ������������������������������ Close the selected window Command + Option + W ������������ Close all windows Function + F3 ��������������������������������� Launch/Quit Mission Control

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Desktop Shortcuts With these shortcuts, you can access Mission Control, your application windows and hide/show the Dock.

Mission Control Shortcuts When you’re in Mission Control, these shortcuts help you navigate your way around your desktop and apps. Control + → ������������������������������������ Move to space on right Control + # �������������������������������������� Switch to a specific numbered (#) desktop

Keyboard Shortcuts

Screenshots

Command + U �������������������������������� Underline the selected text, or turn

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to take a screenshot on your Mac. This is how you do it.

Command + T �������������������������������� Show or hide the Fonts pane

underlining on or off Command + D �������������������������������� When saving a document, this selects

Snap selected area ����������������������� Cmd-Shift-4 and drag over an area while dragging, hold the space bar to move the selected area, hold Shift to change size in one direction only or Option to start selecting from the centre Snap a window ������������������������������ Cmd-Shift-4, press space bar and click on the window Snap entire screen ������������������������ Cmd-Shift-3

the Desktop folder Command + Control + D ������������ Highlight a word and this shortcut shows its definition Command + Shift + : �������������������� Display the Spelling and Grammar pane Command + ; ����������������������������������� Spellcheck the document Option + Delete ����������������������������� Delete the word to the left of the cursor Control + H �������������������������������������� Delete the character to the left of the insertion point. Or use

Delete

Display and Accessibility Shortcuts

Control + D �������������������������������������� Delete the character to the right of the

These shortcuts control your display, and also features associated with Apple’s Accessibility options.

Fn + Delete �������������������������������������� Forward delete on keyboards without a

F1 �������������������������������������������������������� Decrease screen brightness F2 �������������������������������������������������������� Increase screen brightness Command + F5 ������������������������������ VoiceOver on/off Option + Command + F5 ����������� Display Accessibility controls Command + Option + 8 �������������� Zoom On/Off Command + Option + + �������������� Zoom in Command + Option + - �������������� Zoom out

Control + K �������������������������������������� Delete the text between the cursor and

cursor Forward Delete key the end of the line or paragraph Fn + Up Arrow �������������������������������� Scroll up one page Fn + Down Arrow �������������������������� Scroll down one page Fn + Left Arrow ������������������������������ Move to the beginning of a document Fn + Right Arrow ��������������������������� Move to the end of a document Command + Up Arrow ����������������� Move the cursor to the beginning of the document

Document Shortcuts

Command + Down Arrow ��������� Move the cursor to the end of the

These shortcuts come in very handy when you’re creating or editing a document, and they work in most apps.

Command + Left Arrow �������������� Move the cursor to the beginning of the

Command + I ��������������������������������� Italicise the selected text, or turn italics on or off

Command + Right Arrow ����������� Move the cursor to the end of the

document current line current line

Boot, Sleep and Shutdown Shortcuts. These are not strictly speaking keyboard shortcuts, but are used when starting or shutting down your Mac to access various options.

Power Button (⌽)

Press once �������������������������������Put Mac to sleep Press again ������������������������������Wake Mac up Hold ������������������������������������������Force Mac shutdown Command + Control + ⌽ ���������Force Mac to restart

While Starting

Shutting Down

Control + ⏏ ������������������������������������������ Show restart/sleep/shutdown Command + Option + Control + ⏏ ������� Quit all of your opened applications Shift + Control + ⏏ ������������������������������� Put displays to sleep Command + Shift + Q ��������������������������� Log out Command + Shift + Option + Q ������������ Log out (immediately)

Option (hold) ����������������������������Display bootable volumes Shift (hold) ���������������������������������Start in Safe Mode Left Shift (hold) �������������������������Bypass automatic login C (hold) �������������������������������������Boot from other media T (hold) �������������������������������������Start in FireWire target disk mode N (hold) �������������������������������������Start from NetBoot server X (hold) �������������������������������������Force Mac startup Command + R (hold) ����������������Start in Recovery Mode ⏏ (hold) ������������������������������������Eject discs

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Taking Care of Your Mac

Glossary of Mac and Computing Terms We’ve tried to keep this guide as jargon free as possible, but inevitably there are some words and phrases that might still seem mysterious to the newcomer. Where that’s the case, this glossary should help. If you’re confused by a technical term or unavoidable jargon, take a look; you might just find the definition you need in here.

A

Accessibility: A series of tools and features designed to make an Apple device such as the Mac and iOS devices easier to use by those with disabilities such as vision or hearing impairments. You can find the Mac’s Accessibility features and customise them in System Preferences. AirPlay: A protocol for streaming sounds and video from an Apple device to a set of compatible speakers, or a device such as an Apple TV. It’s wireless, and easy to use as well. App: Short for ‘application’, another name for a computer software program. Your Mac comes with a selection of pre-installed apps, and you can buy more from the Mac App Store. App Store: The App Store is where you can download free and paid programs to your device using your Apple ID. You can access it through the application that comes bundled with your Mac. Apple ID: This is the email address and password that you have registered with Apple. It’s required to access many online applications on your Mac, including iTunes, App Store and iBooks. Apple Menu: The menu that’s opened by clicking on the Apple icon in the left of the menu bar. It gives access to system functions such as Preferences, App Store, Force Quit and more.

B

Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a wireless technology used to link and exchange data with another compatible device. It has a range of approximately 8 metres (25ft). The Mac supports many Bluetooth devices, including headphones, keyboards and fitness trackers. Browser: An app used to access websites found on the worldwide web. The Mac comes with Apple’s Safari browser preinstalled, but others are available in the App Store.

C

Calendar: This is one of Apple’s preloaded apps. Use it to keep track of events, invitations, and reminders on your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Closed Clamshell Mode: By connecting your notebook Mac to a display, an external keyboard and a controller such as a mouse or Magic Trackpad, you can use it like a desktop computer, with the notebook closed.

D

Desktop: A computer that’s designed to be used on a desk while plugged into the mains, at home or in the office, as opposed to a notebook or laptop. Apple’s range of desktop computers is the iMac, the Mac mini and the Mac Pro.

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Dock: The opaque strip at the bottom of the screen. Apps in the dock are easy to access and open, and you can customise it to best suit your requirements. Apps that are currently running are also shown in the dock.

Folders: A folder is a container for a group of apps or files. You can create one by using Finder’s File menu, or right-clicking on the desktop and using the contextual menu. You can drag items into and out of a folder.

E

G

Emoticon: A small drawing used to augment a message or text. Typically, these are yellow faces showing a variety of expressions.

F

Facebook: Currently the most popular social networking site on the Internet. Add your Facebook account to your list of Internet Accounts in System Preferences and you can share material directly to it using the macOS Share button. FaceTime: You can make video and audio calls to other Apple devices using the FaceTime app. These are made over the Internet so are free unless using mobile data. Finder: The Finder is the Mac’s user interface. It deals with management of folders, windows, menus and more. Its feature set has grown over the years, with recent introductions including tabbed Finder windows and tags. Force Quit: The act of forcing an application to close down, perhaps because it’s crashed or frozen. It’s achieved by right-clicking its dock icon, or opening the Apple menu and selecting Force Quit.

Gestures: These are actions performed with your fingers on the Mac’s trackpad. You can use gestures on a notebook trackpad, an Apple Magic Trackpad or to a limited extent, an Apple Magic Mouse. Gumdrops: A colloquial term for the three coloured buttons found in the top left corner of an app or finder window. They close the window (red), minimise the window (yellow) or switch to and from full-screen mode (green)

H

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, the standard for building websites, and a cornerstone technology of the worldwide web.

I

iBooks: This is Apple’s eBook application, which is available for free from the App Store and is also bundled with recent versions of macOS. It handles the standard electronic publishing formats protected by FairPlay DRM, and also PDF documents. It was introduced in 2010 along with the iPad.

Glossary of Mac and Computing Terms iCloud: The collective name for Apple’s online services, it replaced MobileMe and integrates with all iOS devices and macOS/OS X Mac computers. iMessage: A text message that’s sent from one Apple device to another. iMessages use the Internet rather than the mobile phone network, so they’re sent free of charge from iPhones and iPads. iOS: Apple’s mobile operating system. iOS is the software that powers the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV. iTunes: Mac and Windows music playing software, also used to activate and sync iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It is also used to purchase and manage music, movies, TV shows, apps, books, and other media.

L

LaunchPad: Found in the dock represented by a rocket icon, the LaunchPad is an easy way of opening apps. It resembles and behaves like an iOS home screen. Lightning: The cable connection used by modern iPads and iPhones. It replaces the old 30-pin dock connectors, and is used to charge these mobile devices and sync them with your Mac. Link: A piece of text or a graphic that, when clicked, takes you to another screen. Location Services: Features and software on your Mac that pinpoint and use your current location. The Maps app is one example.

M

macOS: Formerly known as OS X, macOS is the operating system on which the Mac runs. The current version of macOS is Version 10.13: High Sierra. Like most recent versions of macOS, High Sierra is a free upgrade. Mail: The Mac’s bundled email client. It can handle a wide range of email accounts, including Apple iCloud accounts, Microsoft’s and Google’s mail services, Yahoo email accounts and those accounts that are provided by your Internet Service Provider. Third party email apps are available.

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Menu Bar: The macOS Menu Bar sits atop the desktop, at the top of the screen. On the left are pull-down menus, which vary according to what app you’re using. On the right are menulets and controls, along with info such as the time and date. Messages: One of Apple’s built-in apps that handles SMS text messages and MMS multimedia messages. Monitor: Also called a display, this is an external screen that’s essential for Mac minis and Mac Pros. You can also add a monitor to an iMac or notebook Mac as a second or even primary display. Mouse: A controller used to move your pointer around your Mac’s screen, and to select options using the mouse buttons. A mouse is traditionally used with a desktop computer such as the iMac or Mac Pro, but if you don’t like trackpads, you can use one with your notebook too. MMS: Multimedia Messages (MMS) supports images, videos, sound, contact cards, and location data. Sent and received via the Messages app on the Mac to other Macs and mobile cell phones.

N

Notebook: A portable computer, sometimes called a laptop. Notebooks can be mains or battery powered and have their own built-in screen, which folds down for portability. Apple’s notebook range comprises of the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Notification Centre: A list of recent notifications, accessible by clicking on the icon in the top-right corner of the Mac’s desktop.

P

Photos: A bundled Mac application that lets you store, manage and edit your photo collections and share them with your other Apple devices using iCloud. Photo Stream: Part of iCloud, Photo Stream stores your last thirty days or 1000 photos online and on your iOS devices, and all your photos on your Mac.

Q

QuickTime: Apple’s 2D video and graphics player, used to play movies and other video on your Mac.

R

Retina Display: This is Apple’s term for its high-resolution screens. The pixels are so small it’s impossible to distinguish between them at a normal viewing distance, making the on-screen images very smooth and clear.

S

Safari: Apple’s web browser, similar in function to Microsoft Explorer or Google Chrome. It’s available for both Macs and iOS devices, and it lets you surf the worldwide web. Siri: Apple’s voice activated digital assistant. You can give Siri spoken instructions and the service replies by giving you the information you asked for; or by activating the requested Mac function. SMS (Short Message Service): Text messages sent from the Messages app from a Mac’s Messages app or mobile device such as the iPad or iPhone to other cell mobile phones.

T

Tablet: A computer in a flat, ‘tablet’ form factor, such as the iPad. While the iPad is the most popular tablet computer, other models are available. Text Field: Any area of the screen where you can add text. For example, when completing a web form, there are text fields for things like your name, address and more. Tap on a text field to bring up the cursor, so you can start typing. Thunderbolt: A high-speed connectivity port offered on recent Macs. A Thunderbolt port can carry a video signal as well as data, so it can be used for an external display. Touch Bar: The very latest models of the MacBook Pro replaces the function keys with a touch-sensitive screen which displays functions and controls according to the app or feature you’re currently using. It also has a Touch ID

fingerprint scanner for unlocking your Mac. Trackpad: The controller device used in notebook Macs. You control your on-screen pointer by dragging your finger across the trackpad. Apple’s Magic Trackpad is available for desktop computers. Twitter: One of the most popular social networks built around a follower/following system rather than friends, with messages limited to 140 characters. There’s an official Twitter app for the Mac, and several third party options too.

U

URL: Uniform Resource Locator, the address used to access a web page. For example, Apple’s URL (its website) is www.apple.com. USB: Universal Serial Bus, an industry standard for connecting computers and peripherals introduced in the mid-Nineties. The latest version, USB-C, is also known as Thunderbolt 3, and is the only ports offered on a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro.

V

VPN: (Virtual Private Network): This provides secure access over the Internet to private networks, such as the network at your company or school.

W

Wi-Fi: A wireless means of getting onto the Internet or connecting two devices. At home, your Wi-Fi network is established through your router. Whilst away from home, you might have access to public Wi-Fi networks like those offered in coffee shops or libraries.

Y

YouTube: The Internet’s most popular video viewing and sharing service. Owned by Google, you can access YouTube through a web browser, or through a dedicated app available for the Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

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Mac Manual The Complete

The Complete Mac Manual is the only guide to your desktop or notebook Mac you need. Its 192 pages are packed with tips and tutorials, written in plain English and fully illustrated to make them easy to follow. It has everything you need to help you use your Mac to its full potential. Our hardware guide helps you

• • • • • • • • • • •

Which Mac Should You Buy Set Up Out of the Box How to Update macOS Taking Your Mac Online Using the Desktop and Menus Get More from the Dock The Notification Center Send and Receive Emails Safari and the Web Buying and Reading eBooks Video Calls with FaceTime

• • • • • • • • • • •

choose which Mac is best for you and we show you how to set it up and take it onto the Internet; we also explain how to get the most from its bundled apps. Then we bring you guides to the Mac’s advanced features and what to do if something goes wrong. It’s all in The Complete Mac Manual!

• • • • • •

Get More from Maps App and iTunes Stores The iCloud Service Auto Save Explained Using Browser Extensions Full Screen Mode Split View Screens Macs and iPhones Home and Family Sharing Using a Mac for the Impaired Windows and Linux on Your Mac

• • • •

Add a Second Screen Adding Joypads and Controllers Extending Your Battery Life Speed Up Your Mac Get More from Siri Glossary of Mac and Computing Terms The MacBook Pro Touch Bar Time Machine Back-ups Taking Care of Your Mac Using Keyboard Shortcuts

This guidebook can be used with the following: MacBook

MacBook Pro 13-inch

Mac mini

MacBook Air 11-inch

MacBook Pro 15-inch

iMac & iMac Pro

MacBook Air 13-inch

New MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Mac Pro

Any Apple notebook or desktop running the macOS High Sierra operating system