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How The Heck Do I Copy And Paste?

J

jonkob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Ok, I am new to Mac. I just got a macbook Pro, 2.3 with 2gigs of memory, Just got it today and love the machine. I am having a hard though figuring out the nuances of a Mac, coming from a PC. For one thing, how do I copy and paste text? there is notHing to right click, lol......and when I insert a CD with files or photos on it, how do I save those files and photos? I dont know where to put them, or how to even extract them from the CD to ge them onto the mac.....THANKS IN ADVANCE
 
command-c is copy, command-v is paste.
Command is the key with the apple on it.

You can get right-click functions by pressing control as you click, or by enabling 2-finger right clicking in your system preferences.

To get pictures off of the CD, just browse to it in Finder, then drag them all to whatever folder on your computer that you like. Same for your music files. You can then import them into iPhoto or iTunes as appropriate, if you wish.

Since you're obviously new to the OS X scene, I'd suggest taking a look at some new user guides; there are some here at Macrumors (in the Guides section) as well as on Apple.com. There are of course a number of books you can buy as well.

Mac 101
Switch 101

Welcome to MR, and congrats on your very nice machine.
 
You can turn on right clicking in your System Preferences, it's done by putting two fingers on the trackpad then clicking, or by holding down Control while clicking (desktop mice have two buttons).

You can also hit Command + C to copy, Command + X to cut, or Command V to paste.

You can also usually choose all three from the "Edit" menu of whatever program you're in.

Additionally, as you get to know your Mac better, as you're going through various menus and stuff, anything that has a command next to it (like a squiggly flower - the Command symbol) and some other letter or stuff - that indicates a key command for that action.

So Command + P will be print. Command + S is save. Command + N is usually "create new document" in most programs.
 
The two that I found most useful when I started using a Mac were
command+w -> closes the window
command+q -> quits the program

that was one of the big things I noticed when switching was that when you close somthing the program is still open just no windows are present, so you have to quit the program when your done with it.


annnnndddd just in case you were unsure the command button is the one with the apple on it 🙂apple: 😛 )
 
MacMosher said:
The two that I found most useful when I started using a Mac were
command+w -> closes the window
command+q -> quits the program
Click to expand...

These are my two favorite as well, and the cool part is - command+q - works while - command+tab-ing - through programs.
 
MacMosher said:
annnnndddd just in case you were unsure the command button is the one with the apple on it 🙂apple: 😛 )
Click to expand...

Damn, I still call it "open-apple" ... a holdover from the old days when we had TWO apple keys on our keyboards. An open-apple key that had an apple outline on the left, and a closed-apple key that had a solid apple on the right side of the spacebar.
 
I remember the Open Apple and Closed Apple buttons, I had an Apple a LOOOOONG time ago like that.

If it makes you feel any better though, I've been using a Mac now for over a year, and still haven't figured out how to print screen ;-)
 
You can get a screencapture by pressing command + shift + 3. Another useful key combo would be command + M to minimize, command + H to hide the app and you might find command + option + ctrl + 8 interesting 😉.
 
Here's one way http://askbobrankin.com/take_a_screenshot.html

But it reminds me of what we had to do with early versions of Windows - except I still have to edit by hand to get the sub window I wanted to print or to save so I can add it to a document. Not at all clean and simple.

There are lots of things that I'm hoping will become intuitive with time. But I have had to use Word to create a multi-page fax document of scanned stuff and then find PDF at the bottom of the print menu to fax. (I wanted to put in a fax number in the address book and use it - but I haven't figured that out yet) That's not intuitive, and it's a lot of work. And some things I haven't figured out at all.

I expect it will come in time. Everybody says it is easier and more natural than Windows - but those examples indicate that I must have found the tougher and less natural alternatives and still need to learn the easy way.
 
Angrist said:
Damn, I still call it "open-apple" ... a holdover from the old days when we had TWO apple keys on our keyboards. An open-apple key that had an apple outline on the left, and a closed-apple key that had a solid apple on the right side of the spacebar.
Click to expand...

Oh my, i'd forgotten that - must be why i do EVERYTHING with the one on the left side! LOL!!!
 
Howard Brazee said:
Here's one way http://askbobrankin.com/take_a_screenshot.html

But it reminds me of what we had to do with early versions of Windows - except I still have to edit by hand to get the sub window I wanted to print or to save so I can add it to a document. Not at all clean and simple.

There are lots of things that I'm hoping will become intuitive with time. But I have had to use Word to create a multi-page fax document of scanned stuff and then find PDF at the bottom of the print menu to fax. (I wanted to put in a fax number in the address book and use it - but I haven't figured that out yet) That's not intuitive, and it's a lot of work. And some things I haven't figured out at all.

I expect it will come in time. Everybody says it is easier and more natural than Windows - but those examples indicate that I must have found the tougher and less natural alternatives and still need to learn the easy way.
Click to expand...
I'd read this Apple Support article if I were you. Saves you some of that manual editing.
 
As wrldwzrd89's link shows, while the Cmd-Shift-3 keystroke grabs the whole screen, you can be a bit more specific if you use Cmd-Shift-4, as you can choose the area you want (or hit the space bar to grab a single window). Also, control in combination with these commands will put it on the clipboard instead of a file - that's usually more useful for me.
 
Howard Brazee said:
Here's one way http://askbobrankin.com/take_a_screenshot.html

But it reminds me of what we had to do with early versions of Windows - except I still have to edit by hand to get the sub window I wanted to print or to save so I can add it to a document. Not at all clean and simple.

There are lots of things that I'm hoping will become intuitive with time. But I have had to use Word to create a multi-page fax document of scanned stuff and then find PDF at the bottom of the print menu to fax. (I wanted to put in a fax number in the address book and use it - but I haven't figured that out yet) That's not intuitive, and it's a lot of work. And some things I haven't figured out at all.

I expect it will come in time. Everybody says it is easier and more natural than Windows - but those examples indicate that I must have found the tougher and less natural alternatives and still need to learn the easy way.
Click to expand...

You'll find that it is almost all easier once you learn the right way to do each task.

But with that said, not EVERYTHING is going to be easier on a Mac, but we'll try to help the best we can. For faxing read this:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/faxing/
(I see that you know to use the PDF tab in the print menu, but you seem to find the process of making a document via scanning into Word until ready to fax difficult. Is that correct? What would be the process to scan a multi-page document and then fax it in Windows? Maybe then I'll know how it is different.)

For adding a fax number to Address Book, simply take an existing card, hit the edit button near the bottom of the window, click the little green plus sign near the existing phone number(s) and then add the fax number and then change the type of number to "fax" using the drop down menu right where it presently says "mobile" or "home" or something like that. If you already know how to do that but instead were asking how you take an existing phone number that is already set up in Address Book as a fax and easily fax to that number, I hope the above link answers the question. If not, please restate exactly what you are hoping to accomplish and maybe someone will know a better way.

As for screenshots, here is some info (the info is dated but generally helpful):
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2003/02/28/screenshot.html

Now, screen grabs are in the .png format instead of .pdf. You can change the default screen grab format by going into Terminal:
http://textsnippets.com/posts/show/131

EDIT: largely ignore the screenshot link above and read this instead:
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2006/01/01/mac-os-x-screenshot-secrets.html
 
It took me a while to scan in my documents. Then I looked for a fax application to fax it these. I didn't find it (which doesn't mean it's not there), so I decided to turn all of these scans into one document using Word.

Then I faxed the word document, and it appeared to work. I faxed it again the next day and discovered a place that listed two successful faxes. Except we found out that the first fax was not complete.

I tried to create a fax number in Address Book, I put in a phone number, and tried to enter the name in the fax application, but failed.
 
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