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Macbook Trackpad Shortcuts

Trackpad System preferencesIf you haven't realized it yet, the trackpad on your Macbook can really save you some time with its built in, multi-finger features. Of course, there are the typical one finger options such as one finger touch to click. You can even make the bottom right corner act like the right click feature of a typical mouse. All of these settings can be found under System Preferences > Hardware > Trackpad.

So you knew all about the normal one finger click or even the two finger "right click"? Did you know about the other two finger features? How about the three or even four finger features?

One of the cooler things about working with images on your Macbook is that you can rotate images and even zoom in and out using the trackpad and two fingers. Try it. Open an image in Preview and then touch the mouse pad with two fingers. Pull your fingers apart across the trackpad or pinch them together to zoom in and out. You can even rotate your fingers to spin images around.

The zoom in and out method can also be used to zoom in and out on alot of other things. Try it in Firefox for example. Also, try it on your desktop to see your icons get larger or smaller.

Two fingers up and down in scrollable windows can also scroll for you. Again, another useful tip for your browser.

Another scrolling window tip is to use three fingers on the trackpad. Move them up to jump to the top of the window. Move them down to jump to the bottom.

Again with three fingers, you can swipe left or right on the trackpad in a browser to navigate forward and backwards in your browser's history. That sure beats clicking the forward and back buttons!

Last, but definitely not least, if you use Expose as often as I do, you can really appreciate these. With four fingers on the trackpad, move up, down, left or right to see what happens.

Moving four fingers left or right brings up the same app switching method that you would see if you hit Command + Tab then you can either use the arrow keys or switch to one finger to select an application. Moving four fingers down across the trackpad will spread all of your open windows out so you can see them all. Clicking on one or using the arrows to highlight a window then hitting Enter will bring that window to the front. Just move four fingers back up to revert to where you were.

Finally, moving four fingers up across the trackpad will part the sea of windows so you can get a clear view of your precious desktop. Just move your four nubbins back down across the trackpad to go back to where you were.

Pretty cool huh? And that is just the trackpad!

Be sure to check out all of the options in the system preferences to get things setup just right for you.

Enjoy!

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