Creating Live Links in Documents

Sometimes it’s useful to create a hypertext link within your documents. You might, for example, make a link that automatically opens a Safari web page when clicked, or one that generates a pre-addressed email message.
Here’s how to create a link in TextEdit, your Mac’s word processing program: First, select the text you’d like to use as your link. Next, go to the Format menu and select Text, then Link. In the pop-up that appears, type the URL you’d like to link to. (Your linking text needn’t be a URL itself. For example, you could link to the same location either by typing: “Get more info at www.apple.com,” or “Get more Apple info here.” Press OK, and you’ve got your link.

You can generate an email just as easily. In the Link destination field, type “mailto:” followed by the email address, with no spaces, like so: mailto:info@apple.com.
TextEdit boasts a new feature in Leopard: Smart Links, which automatically creates links from email addresses and URLs as soon as you type them. To activate it, select Preferences from the TextEdit menu, make sure the New Document tab is selected, and check the Smart Links box in the lower right corner. Now Leopard will automatically generate a link in TextEdit each time you type a URL or email address. (You may need to restart TextEdit to enable this change.)

Leopard also lets you create live links in Mail. First, highlight your linking text. From the Edit menu, select Link, then Add… and enter the desired web address in the popup.

In Pages, the advanced word processing program included in the iWork ’08 package, there’s an extra layer of sophistication: You can forge links by selecting Hyperlink from the Insert menu, or create them via the Inspector window. You can also create bookmarks that link to other locations within a multi-page document, or generate email with the subject field already filled in.

Browse in Privacy with Safari

Under normal circumstances, Safari retains records of your web browsing activity. It remembers the pages you visit, the data you download, and your web searches. It may also store your personal data in order to automatically complete online forms.
While these features can save time and help you retrace your online steps, there are occasions when you might prefer to leave no footprints — for example, when browsing on a public computer.
The solution is simple: Before you begin browsing, go to the Safari menu and select Private Browsing. When the warning box appears, click OK. Now Safari stores none of the aforementioned info.

What if you decide you need privacy after you’ve been browsing? You have several options: You can remove individual pages from Safari’s page-view history, erase the entire history, or clear all traces of your activity, including any cookies and cache files you may have accumulated.
To review the pages you’ve visited and delete them as desired, go to the History menu and select Show All History. Here you can select pages and clear them with the Delete key. To wipe the entire Safari history, select Clear History from the History menu. For a completely clean slate, go to the Safari menu and select Reset Safari.
Note that the Private Browsing option does not prevent Safari from collecting cookies (the preference files automatically generated by many websites). The Reset Safari option clears all cookies. If you want to delete only certain ones, choose Preferences from the Safari menu, click the Security tab, and then click Show Cookies. You can select and delete individual cookies from the list that appears. Careful, though — if you’re a frequent web user, this list can be very, very long.

Editing Word Files — Without Word

It’s easy to work with Microsoft Word files on your Mac, even if you don’t have Microsoft Word installed on your computer.
TextEdit, your Mac’s built-in word processing program, can open MS Word files (which are often distinguished by a “.doc” or “.docx” suffix). Simply double-click the document icon. It will automatically open in TextEdit if that’s the only word-processing program on your computer. If you have several, you can specify which program to use by Control-clicking on the file icon (or right-clicking if you have a two-button mouse) and selecting your desired program.

Now you can edit the file just like any other document. However, if you want to share your file with MS Word users, be sure to save your work in Word format. Here’s how.
From the File menu, choose Save As… or type Command-Shift-s. Click-hold on the File Format tab and choose one of the Word formats. Press Save.

If you own iWork ’08, you can use similar techniques in Pages, Apple’s advanced word processor. But instead of using the Save As… command, select Export from the File menu. Choose the Word option and press Next.

Finally, navigate to the destination where you’d like to save the document, and press Export.

iCal: Your Powerful Personal Assistant

When you add an event to your iCal calendar, you can do much more than simply name it and specify a date and time. Like a good personal assistant, it can remind you of upcoming events, help round up others for meetings, and even ensure that you have essential files in front of you at just the right moment.
To access iCal’s hidden superpowers, just double-click on the event’s name (or select it and type Command-i), then click the Edit button.

To invite other participants to an iCal event, just type their email addresses into the Attendees field. If you prefer, you can open iCal’s Addresses panel by typing Command-Option-a, and drag names from your contacts list. When you’ve added the desired contacts and event details, click Send, and Apple Mail will email the event request. If the event changes, you can send an update with the revised information.

There are many options here. For example, you can assign customized, color-coded categories to help keep track of work projects, personal appointments, and other commitments. You can set up recurring events via the repeat menu, which allows for custom recurrences (say, the last Tuesday of May every ten years) in addition to daily, weekly, monthly, and annual events. To create an event that continues over one or more days, click the “all-day” checkbox.
You can ask iCal to remind you of your upcoming events through a powerful alarm function, which issues one or more event reminders via pop-up messages or email. When pop-up reminders appear, you can “snooze” them for as little as one minute or as much as a week. You can even schedule the iCal alarm to automatically run a script or open a file on your computer at a specified time.

You can also attach documents, graphics, or other files to an event — pictures, maps, spreadsheets, or whatever — and include any relevant URLs. Finally, you can insert additional text into the Note field: anything from a phone number to an entire meeting agenda. (Though this field initially displays as a narrow strip, you can type or paste in as much text as you like.)
When you’re finished, click Done. All the data you added will appear next time you double-click on the event.

Tame Your Tabs With Key Commands

If you sometimes find your desktop cluttered with multiple browser windows, try using tabs in Safari.
Tabs let you open multiple web pages in a single Safari window, so you can easily flip between them. They’re one of the best ways to amp up your web-browsing experience — especially once you’ve tamed them via a few simple key commands. This tip covers the basic moves.
First, make sure Safari is configured for tabbed browsing. From the Safari menu, select Preferences and click on the Tabs icon. Select the “Opens a link in a new tab” option, but leave the others unchecked for now. But take a moment to read the fine print, since it covers some of the tricks we’re about to tackle.

Now open a web page in Safari and try it out. Click on a link while pressing the Command key, and the link opens in a new tab nestled behind the current page. Holding down Command-Shift creates a new tab and brings the new page to the front. You can also open an empty tab by typing Command-t, then type in a URL or load a bookmarked web page. To close a tab, select it and type Command-w, or click on the small x on the left side of the tab.

You can reorder tabs within the Tab Bar simply by dragging them to the left or right. And you can switch from one tabbed page to another via key commands: Type Command-shift- ] (or Command-Shift-Right Arrow Key) to move forward to the next tab to the right, and Command-shift- [ (or Command-Shift-Left Arrow Key) to go to the next tab to the left.
For more cool tab tricks, try Control-clicking on any tab. Or simply right-click Mighty Mouse, and use the contextual menu that appears to create new tabs, close them, move them to new windows, reload them, or bookmark them.

Annotating PDFs in Preview

Annotating PDFs in Preview

You may already know that Preview is a terrific application for viewing PDF files. But did you realize it’s also great for annotating PDFs? It’s a fast and efficient way to share comments when collaborating on group projects.
Under Preview’s Tools menu, you’ll find the options Mark Up and Annotate. Mark Up lets you highlight, strike through, or underline selected text within a PDF. Annotate allows you to draw circles and rectangles around parts of a PDF, append Stickies-style notes, and add hyperlinks.

To use Mark Up, choose the Text tool from Preview’s Toolbar. Select your target text with the cursor, and then choose a Mark Up option from the Tools menu (the choices are Highlight Text, Strike Through Text, and Underline Text).
To add shapes, links or comments, select a command from the Tools menu’s Annotate list (the options are Add Oval, Add Rectangle, Add Note, and Add Link).
If you’ve selected Add Note, simply click anywhere on the PDF. A colored tag appears in the left margin alongside the spot where you clicked. Its default text consists of your user name and the date, though you can alter or add to this by double-clicking on the note. To move notes, double-click their icons (those little cartoon-style balloons) and then drag them. When you double-click a note icon, you can also specify the note’s color and other attributes. To remove a note, double-click its icon and press Delete.
All Mark Up and Annotate tools can be summoned via key command. Also, if you use these tools frequently, you may want to add them to Preview’s Toolbar. (By default, they are not shown.) To add them, select the View menu’s Customize Toolbar command, then drag the tools you want from the pop-up onto the Toolbar.

Make the Most of Quick Look

One of the biggest time-savers in Mac OS X Leopard is the Quick Look, which gives you an instant preview of any file. It’s great for finding the right document, image, or mp3 when you’re not sure which is which, or choosing the correct version from a series of files with similar names.
To use Quick Look, simply select an item in the Finder and press the Space bar, or type Command-Y. An image of the selected item appears. (In the case of mp3s, the sound file also plays.) You don’t even need to open the document’s usual application. If it’s a photo, for example, you can see it without waiting for iPhoto or Preview to open.
To close the Quick Look preview, simply press the Space bar again, or click the x in the preview window’s upper-left corner. Alternately, you can type Command-Y or Command-W to close the image.
A few more tips to help you get the most from this amazing feature:

• If you want to preview additional items, don’t close the preview window. Just highlight a new file in the Finder, and the open preview window displays the newly selected object.
• Quick Look lets you view multiple-page documents. For longer files, a navigation scroll bar appears along the preview window’s right margin. It even works with PDFs and Keynote presentations.

• You can preview multiple items simultaneously. Just select several items in the Finder by lassoing them with your cursor. Or open one item in Quick Look, then use the up- and down-arrow keys to display other files in the same folder.
• You can combine searches and Quick Look. Simply type keywords into a Finder window’s Search Box to reveal files whose names or contents match the search terms. Select some or all of the results, open Quick Look via space bar or Command-Y, and use your up- and down-arrow keys to switch between the selected previews.