Mastering a New MacBook When Working from Home

Majority of us are more familiar with Microsoft and Windows-based laptops and software because these are the most widely and commonly used laptops and software in the world. However, increasing numbers of people who are working from home and freelancing are beginning to try out Apple software and MacBook. These are less prone to viruses and hacking and have all sorts of features that can benefit a small, independent business or freelancer. If you’re considering getting a Mac, it’s important to get to grips with the basics and to learn how to use it properly.

Keeping Things Up and Running

First things first, it’s important that you have access to IT solutions if you’re going to use a MacBook (or any other tech) for your work from home. A reliable company like Zentech will be able to help you with this!

Memorizing Keyboard Shortcuts

Apple macs have all sorts of keyboard shortcuts that are specially designed to save you so much time and effort when you’re doing day-to-day tasks. The individual amounts of time saved are small, but they mount up and can make your working day a lot easier. The most commonly used combinations tend to be text-based, such as “command” and “I” (for italics), “command” and “B” (for bold), or “command” and “U” (for underlined text). There are plenty more shortcuts you can familiarize yourself with here.

Knowing How to Use Special Characters

If you’re bilingual or using characters from another language for some other reason, you are likely to get tired of copying and pasting special characters as they don’t appear on a standard English keyboard. However, you can use special characters easily on a mac. The key is to take the letter closest to the character you want and hold it down. After a moment, alternatives will pop up. Take e for example. If you press and hold this key, è, é, ê, ë, ē, ė, and ę all become available.

Using the Pop Up Dictionary

MacBooks have a pop up dictionary, which is a great feature to learn how to use. After all, every now and then even the wordsmiths amongst us come across a word that we’re unfamiliar with or don’t really know the meaning of. If you’re signing contracts or replying to emails from customers, partners, or collaborators, you’re going to want to make sure you know what’s being said perfectly. To load your pop up dictionary on your mac, just hover your cursor over any text on your screen. Then press “command”, “control” and “D” at the same time. The word will automatically highlight yellow, and a definition will open. It’s as simple as that!

MacBooks really do have some great features that can help you excel when you’re working from home. Mastering features and ensuring everything’s running smoothly will boost your productivity and consequently boost your profits.