Hi everyone, this is Anne for Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to talk about
how to speed up your Mac workflow.
And this is for graphic designers.
But it can also be really useful for the rest of you guys out there.
The first tip I wanted to tell you is the Spotlight.
So to do Spotlight on a Mac, all you do is hit CMD spacebar, and that will bring up this
window.
And this is great if you want to type 'calculator.'
Bam, the calculators up!
I also use Spotlight a lot if I don't have the program down here at the bottom.
For example, I'll do Quicktime and then it'll just start it right up.
Okay, so that was tip number 1.
Next I'm going to tell you about using CMD tab and CMD tilda (~). CMD tab will rotate
through all of your open programs.
So that's an easy way to jump to another program, especially if you're doing some copying and
pasting from Google Chrome to, say, Illustrator or InDesign.
You can just do Google Chrome and then back to Illustrator.
Now if you're in Illustrator or InDesign, you can use CMD tilda (~) to flip through
the open documents you have to easily get to another document.
So that is pretty handy.
I use that one all the time.
And that's something that's used across the board.
So if we go in here to Pages and I've got several documents here, I can do CMD Tilda
(~) and flip between those.
It's so handy for every program on a Mac.
Okay, so let's get out here to the Finder.
And I want to show you some key commands that you can use right in your Finder window.
So one that's really helpful for me, is CMD N to get a new Finder window.
I usually use two windows at the same time.
That way I can easily drag files to another location.
I use CMD N to get the second window and then I just resize it but most of the time I always
have these two windows open.
I don't usually work off my desktop at all – I use the desktop here.
I don't usually work from this view at all.
In fact, I never see this view.
I usually work from these two windows because the desktop is also right here.
And now I can just type anything I want and it will come right up.
Now once I have a document open, the way to close it is CMD W. And you can also do this
out on the Finder.
So if I didn't want, say, this window open, I could just CMD W, and that would go away.
CMD Q is helpful when you're within a program and that will quit it.
So you have to be careful with accidentally hitting that one if you're using all of these
'command and the letter,' like CMD W is right next to CMD Q, but usually you'll have unsaved
changes and of course it will ask you do you want to save your changes first.
So it's not too bad.
Another thing I use in all the programs and also in the Finder is CMD A which is select
all.
It will select everything within a folder.
So I can do CMD A here and if I wanted to move these, then I could just come down here,
find my other folder and just drag them down here.
So now I took them out of buttons and put them into pictures, which I didn't really
want to do.
I'll just put it right back.
But that's an easy way to kind of move things around without having to try to, you know,
hover folders to get them to open, all that.
Open the origin place up here and then open the destination place down here, and then
you can just drag them where they need to go.
You can also copy and paste just with CMD C, and CMD V. And there they are.
I also use CMD Delete to send files straight to the trash.
One thing that I use all the time with the Finder window is CMD 1, 2, and 3.
I use CMD 4 sometimes, but 1, 2, and 3 are the most useful for me and I'll show you why.
So let's go out here to Chrome.
And let's say I just download this picture.
And this is going into my downloads right now.
Now if I'm an illustrator and I'm working on a document, I can do File > Place.
I know my picture is in Downloads, so I can do OPT CMD and L and then I'll do CMD 2, and
then Sort by Date Modified.
Here is the most recent, it'll always be on top...if you have it as sorted by today, and
in CMD 2, which is this one right here.
To jump to places in your Finder, you can use SHIFT CMD D, that'll get you to your desktop,
and I can just start typing the name of what I need, and it will come right up.
Another place I visit a lot is my Downloads that's OPT CMD L. I visit my Applications
quite a lot - SHIFT CMD A - when maybe I can't remember the name of an application and I
can't do the Spotlight.
Another good one is SHIFT CMD H. Now this is if I want to get into my library.
And if your library is not showing up, you can control click right down here, Show View
Options and here is the Show Library Folder.
So just check that in your library, it will show up right here.
This is where you can find your Adobe stuff like Presets and Actions and Swatches and
those kinds of things I mentioned.
What I do with CMD 2, it's an easy way to find the most recent file you downloaded.
But I use CMD 3 most of the time because it shows me the path.
So I'm like, OK, out of these, I know I need to visit Library, and then Application Support,
and then we'll go into Adobe.
And then we'll come down here to you know, you can see where you're supposed to go through
there.
So that's really helpful.
If you're in CMD 2 you don't really get to see...you have to do these dropdowns and it's
not quite as nice.
So CMD 3 is better when you're searching for something.
CMD 1 I never really use....
OK, but CMD 4 shows you a little picture.
So that can be nice.
It kind of does a little 'Bridge' there for you - gives you previews of everything.
I rarely use it because I pretty much always know exactly what I want.
And this does take your computer a little longer.
So I usually stick to 2 and 3.
All right, so those are my super speedy ways to get around the Finder on a Mac.
So if you have any ideas yourself, please let me know.
I'm always looking to increase my own workflow.
So that would be awesome.
If you like this video, please click the Like button and I will see everyone next week.
Thank you!!!