The most underused way to immediately perform some common computer actions are their associated keyboard shortcuts. While they require some focus to learn, they can be used throughout many programs and will end up saving the savvy user tons of time in the long run.

Many people are familiar with the more common ones, which I’ll list below. The ⌘ icon represents the Command key, found immediately to the left or right of the space bar on your Mac. If you don’t commonly use shortcuts, the timing might take some time to master, but I typically hold down the Command key first and press the letter in question once.

Text/Writing (commands apply to text highlighted)
⌘N – New – To create a blank document or a project from a template
⌘O – Open – Brings up a browser to select a file to open from your files
⌘S – Save – You should be doing this often enough that learning this shortcut makes lots of sense.
⌘Z – Undo – Very useful to retrace steps, also works editing photos
⌘X – Cut – Removes text from current document, and keeps it in the clipboard to be Pasted
⌘C – Copy – Copies text to clipboard without removing it
⌘V – Paste – Takes most recently added text from clipboard and inserts it into selected areas
⌘A – Select All – Highlights all text within a particular document or region
⌘P – Print – Pretty self-explanatory

Internet/Browsing (commands apply to the currently selected window)
⌘N – New Window – To bring up an additional browsing window
⌘S – Save as… – This allows you to preserve an archive of this webpage offline
⌘+ – Zoom In – Increase the size of text and images
⌘- – Zoom Out – Decrease the size of text and images
⌘R – Reload – If the page slows, freezes or your connection times out, this can trigger the webpage to appear correctly

Fun Extras
⌘⌥⌃8 – Invert Screen Colors – This one is tricky (⌥ and ⌃ represent Option and Control, both in the same row of buttons as Command)
⇧⌥K – Apple Logo! – The ⇧ stands for Shift, right above Control

There are lots of others. Once you know what buttons the funky symbols stand for, you can just look under the menu options at the top of the screen, and opposite each action is the keyboard shortcut for it.