(See Input Sources to find out how you can see which letters turn into which symbols when pressed with Option.) And if you press the Option key while you type R, G, or 2, you get the ®, ©, and ™ symbols in your document, respectively. Whereas the Alt key’s most popular function is to control the menus in Windows programs, the Option key on the Mac is a “miscellaneous” key that triggers secret functions and special characters.įor example, when you hold down the Option key as you click the Close or Minimize button on a Macintosh window, you close or minimize all open desktop windows. Still, these two keys aren’t exactly the same. For example, in Microsoft Word, the keyboard shortcut for the Split Document Window command is Alt+Ctrl+S in Windows, but Option-⌘-T on the Macintosh.
In many situations, keyboard shortcuts that involve the Alt key in Windows use the Option key on the Mac. This is the closest thing the Mac offers to the Windows Alt key. On North American Mac keyboards, a key on the bottom row is labeled both Alt and Option. Here’s your cheat sheet to the menu keyboard symbols: represents the Shift key, means the Option key, and refers to the Control key.Īlt key. Unfortunately, they’re represented in the menu with goofy symbols instead of their true key names. Mac keyboard shortcuts are listed at the right side of each open menu, just as in Windows.
