Working with two windows or apps side-by-side became much easier since OS X 10.11 El Capitan, thanks to Split Screen view. They're not Apple-only, but your recipient might not be able to see them. There are probably more than you see at first, too click the cog to reveal more.Įmoji (those fun, colourful characters available in OS X 10.7 or later) are a notable exception to this cross-platform world. Not all apps or operating systems support them, but these are mostly part of the cross-platform Unicode standard. This panel gives you access to a huge range of symbols you can drag into your documents. Go to the Edit menu of most apps and you'll see Special Characters at the bottom. You may already be familiar with typing accents such as for café (in which case you type either Option+E then E again or, on OS X 10.7 or later, hold down the E until you get extra options) but you’ll find there are many, many more.

In addition to all the letters and symbols you see on your keyboard, you’d be surprised at the bewildering array of special characters you can type on your Mac. It’s an extremely nifty feature for productivity. You can click on this preview to bring up a markup window, add notes to the image and save them. In addition, with macOS Mojave (opens in new tab) and Catalina, every time you take a screenshot, a preview of that screenshot appears on the bottom right of your screen. No matter the case, taking a screenshot on a Mac requires nothing more than memorizing a few different keystroke combos.

Lastly, if you have a fancy new MacBook Pro (opens in new tab) featuring the Touch Bar, press Shift-Command-6 to take a snapshot of that little OLED strip. To only capture an individual window, you can press Shift + Command + 4, then hit space and click the window you’re trying to capture. If you just want a portion of the screen, the shortcut is Shift + Command + 4 with the same output directory. It’s simple, to take a snap of your entire screen, simply press Shift + Command + 3 at the same time, and the screenshot will be stored on your desktop. Luckily, on a Mac, the process is streamlined. Of course, some keyboards aren’t compatible with the shortcut and opening a separate app to take a screenshot is a bit of a hassle. You can either use the PrtSc key to capture the entirety of your display or use the Snipping Tool to snatch but a portion.

For Windows users, taking screenshots can be a chore.

Best mac os x utilities