Leopard - Quick Dictionary and Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

November 25, 2007 in Leopard, Popular, Tips and Tricks | 5 Comments

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Actually, you don't need to open dictionary application each time you want to check the definition of a word. With Leopard, you can trigger your word definition checking (Dictionary) on-the-fly. Like this :

Quick Dictionary

Snapshot above is taken when I looked up a word definition in dictionary. What I have to do is I just need to put my pointer above certain word then I pressed Command-Control-D and I got this small pop-up dictionary pane right in front my eyes.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

If you looked inside System Preferences ▸ Keyboard & Mouse ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts, there will be a long list of keyboard shortcuts. These all shortcuts can be customized by Double-Clicking on top of the shortcut symbol and filling in new keyboard shortcut.

Here is all the keyboard shortcuts that can be customized inside :

1 Toggle Front Row Cmd-Escape
2 Quick Dictionary Cmd-Control-D
3 Help Cmd-Shift-Slash[/]

Screen Shots

4 Snap Whole Screen Cmd-Shift-3
5 Snap Whole Screen to Clipboard Cmd-Control-Shift-3
6 Snap Certain Area Cmd-Shift-4
7 Snap Certain Area to Clipboard Cmd-Control-Shift-4

Zoom

8 Activate Zoom Cmd-Option-8
9 Image Smoothing Cmd-Option-Backslash[\]
10 Zoom Out Cmd-Option-Hyphen[-]
11 Zoom In Cmd-Option-Equal Sign[=]

Contrast

12 Increase Contrast Cmd-Option-Control-Period[.]
13 Decrease Contrast Cmd-Option-Control-Comma[,]
14 Invert Cmd-Option-Control-8
15 Toggle VoiceOver Cmd-F5
16 Toggle Full Access Control-F1

Move to

17 Menu Bar Control-F2
18 Dock Control-F3
19 Next Active Window Control-F4
20 Toolbar Control-F5
21 Floating Window Control-F6
22 Text Boxes and Lists Control-F7
23 Menu Bar Status Menu Control-F8
24 Other Window within Application Cmd-Accent[`]
25 Window Drawer Cmd-Option-Single Quote[']
26 Toggle Character Palette Cmd-Option-T

Dock, Expose, and Dashboard

27 Hide/Show Dock Cmd-Option-D
28 Show Spaces F8
29 Show All Windows F9
30 Show Application Windows F10
31 Show Desktop F11
32 Show Dashboard F12

Spotlight

33 Search Field Cmd-Space
34 Window Cmd-Option-Space

Display

35 Decrease Brightness F14
36 Increase Brightness F15

These shortcuts haven't received much changed compare to Mac OS X Tiger. Only Front Row, Quick Dictionary, and Spaces are considered new on Leopard.

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5 Comments

03:27 AM

Jay

Great tip that should be shouted from the roof tops. Thank you usingmac.com.

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06:16 PM

kambizpascia

great blog thank you In fierfox dont work ctrl+mac+D ?

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11:43 PM

nick

I second that the quick dictionary command doesn't work in Firefox (2.0.0.10)

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04:29 AM

Isaac

Quick Dictionary and the Front Row shortcut were both in tiger. They are not new to leopard. There was even a quick tip video for quick dictionary months before leopard was released. Thanks for the collection of shortcuts. bookmarking.

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03:07 AM

Melina

very interesting. i'm adding in RSS Reader

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