Owning and using a Mac is, perhaps, one of the most gratifying experiences for any lover of technology. For every function there is an intuitive command, often accompanied by ergonomical shortcuts, and a level of control and detail that makes any task a breeze. The OS is notoriously sleek and
Apple are always tinkering with it to make things just that little bit easier for you, so it was no surprise that when Lion was released it came loaded with cool features and new shortcuts. Here, we take you through our top ten tips to help you along.
Text-to-speech
Lion comes with some allnew, high quality voices for text-to-speech.
Macs have long been able to convert text to speech, but Lion ships with a series of new, high-quality voices your
computer can use to read text to you.Each new voice is between 300Mb and 1Gb in size, and indicated by a yellow triangle symbol. These are downloaded the rst time you choose them, so check the boxes of the voices you want in System Preferences > Speech, and get your Mac talking back!
Spotlight
Spotlight is a little-used, but powerful search engine on your desktop.
Spotlight is one of the most powerful features you’ll nd in Mac OS X, having recently been improved. Use Spotlight to search for items, do a quick sum, or launch your
apps. The default shortcutkey to invoke Spotlight is Cmd+Space, this will automatically focus your cursor on the search box (you can also click on the little magnifying glass at the top right of your screen). You can type the name of an app to quickly locate and launch it, a word to see de nitions, or even do simple sums (try 12,345 + 67,890 to see the answer 80,235 right beneath the search box).
Sign your documents using Preview
Sign documents without having to print, scrawl and scan them.
Write your signature on a piece of paper, making sure you use black ink. In preview, open a PDF document you’d like to sign and choose Create Signature from FaceTime Camera from the S icon on the toolbar. Hold up your piece of paper in front of your camera, and Preview will grab it, process it, and insert it into your document!
Versions
The all-new Versions function in OS X Lion lets you see the history of your documents.
Ever found yourself wanting to return to a document as it was four hours ago, before you made an edit? If you’ve saved your file, up until now this might have been impossible, but with the Versions function, in Lion it’s simple. Click on the document name in the window header, and choose ’Browse Versions’ to enter a Time Machine-like interface that lets you preview the document plotted over time. You can copy and paste from previous versions to the current document, or revert to an earlier version as suits.
Quickly look up any word in the dictionary
Lion has a gesture that will look up any word you choose in a pop-up dictionary.
One of the nicest features in Lion for wordsmiths is the addition of a dedicated gesture to look up words in the system dictionary. The good news is that you don’t have to launch the dictionary app to get access to de nitions – simply double-tap with three ngers on a word, and the de nition pops right up!
Use natural language to create iCal events
iCal understands what you mean by “Tomorrow at 7pm” .
You can create a new event inside iCal by using natural language rather than having to input according to strict rules. Open up iCal, and click on the ’+’ button near the top-left of the app window. Type in ’Swimming at 3pm on Tuesday’, and iCal will automatically interpret your input, creating an event to match!
Create folders
OS X Lion makes it quicker to organise your files.
If you’ve ever had to organise your desktop, reducing the clutter, you’ll appreciate this. Lion allows you to select a group of files and automatically create a folder to store them in. Simply highlight the files you wish to, er, le away, right-click, and choose ’New Folder’. Lion will grab the files, create a folder, and stick all the files inside, saving valuable seconds!
Jukebox screensaver
Your screensaver is a fully interactive jukebox connected to iTunes.
Set your screensaver to use ’iTunes Artwork’ through System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver, and you’ll be able to preview and play music by clicking on any album cover as it’s displayed on the screen. This is a great way to allow guests to play your music without letting them loose on your computer, and might also help you rediscover a forgotten album!
Automatically recover from system crashes
Your Mac is intelligent to know when it’s had a crash
There’s nothing more infuriating than experiencing a system freeze, but your Mac can help you overcome these by automatically restarting itself when this happens. To set this up, open the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences, and tick the ’Restart Automatically if the Computer Freezes’ checkbox.
Gestures
App Exposé is now easily accessed using a swipe of three fingers
If you run multiple windows from a single app, it can be a real nuisance trying to get to the window you need, especially if they’re overlapping each other. That’s why Apple created App Exposé, and in Lion you can access this function by simply swiping down your trackpad with three fingers – easy!
