Most of the people in one part of the world are habitual of working on Windows OS due to its wide presence in homes and offices outside USA. Apple’s Macintosh (Mac) is another popular OS, but limited knowledge about it, especially in Asia, dissuades many from adopting this OS. In this new series of articles our attempt will be imparting some basic knowledge about Mac and how its Office suite differs from that of Microsoft.
The very first step in this direction is to understand how the keyboard of Mac differs from that of windows. Let’s see how a Mac keyboard looks like.
Windows keys and their Macintosh equivalents
| Windows Keys | Mac Keys |
| Control (CTRL) | Command (CMD) |
| ALT | Option (OPT) |
| Delete | DEL |
| Backspace | Delete |
| Enter | Return |
Mac Keys and their symbols
| Key symbols | Mac Keys |
| ⌘ | Command (CMD) |
| ⌃ | Option (OPT) |
| ⌥ | DEL |
Now let’s have a look at some brief information about the Macintosh keys mentioned above
1. Command – This key is the substitution of the ‘control’ key on windows keyboard. Like its windows counterpart, command is used in popular shortcuts. In some keyboards this key is labeled ‘cmd’ with a Bowen knot symbol. Earlier Apple logo was used as a symbol.
E.g. Command + A (shortcut for ‘Select All’)
2. Option – This key is the substitution of the ‘ALT’ key on the windows keyboard. The combination of Option along with some other key (option + 8 key will insert the bullet character) is used to perform any action.
E.g. Option + 8 (Shortcut for ‘Inserting Bullet character)
3. Delete – There is no ‘Backspace’ key in the Mac keyboard. Instead you will find the key ‘Delete’. It is used to delete the typed characters.
4. DEL – It is the substitute of ‘Delete’ key in the windows keyboard and functions in the similar way.
5. Return – ‘Enter’ in the Windows keyboard is replaced by Return in the Mac keyboard. The function though remains the same.
Best Explanation