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Leopard - Quick Dictionary and Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

Actually, you don't need to open dictionary application each time you want to check the definition of a word. With Leopard, you can trigger your word definition checking (Dictionary) on-the-fly. Like this :

Quick Dictionary

Snapshot above is taken when I looked up a word definition in dictionary. What I have to do is I just need to put my pointer above certain word then I pressed Command-Control-D and I got this small pop-up dictionary pane right in front my eyes.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

If you looked inside System Preferences ▸ Keyboard & Mouse ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts, there will be a long list of keyboard shortcuts. These all shortcuts can be customized by Double-Clicking on top of the shortcut symbol and filling in new keyboard shortcut.

Here is all the keyboard shortcuts that can be customized inside :

1 Toggle Front Row Cmd-Escape
2 Quick Dictionary Cmd-Control-D
3 Help Cmd-Shift-Slash[/]

Screen Shots

4 Snap Whole Screen Cmd-Shift-3
5 Snap Whole Screen to Clipboard Cmd-Control-Shift-3
6 Snap Certain Area Cmd-Shift-4
7 Snap Certain Area to Clipboard Cmd-Control-Shift-4

Zoom

8 Activate Zoom Cmd-Option-8
9 Image Smoothing Cmd-Option-Backslash[\]
10 Zoom Out Cmd-Option-Hyphen[-]
11 Zoom In Cmd-Option-Equal Sign[=]

Contrast

12 Increase Contrast Cmd-Option-Control-Period[.]
13 Decrease Contrast Cmd-Option-Control-Comma[,]
14 Invert Cmd-Option-Control-8
15 Toggle VoiceOver Cmd-F5
16 Toggle Full Access Control-F1

Move to

17 Menu Bar Control-F2
18 Dock Control-F3
19 Next Active Window Control-F4
20 Toolbar Control-F5
21 Floating Window Control-F6
22 Text Boxes and Lists Control-F7
23 Menu Bar Status Menu Control-F8
24 Other Window within Application Cmd-Accent[`]
25 Window Drawer Cmd-Option-Single Quote[']
26 Toggle Character Palette Cmd-Option-T

Dock, Expose, and Dashboard

27 Hide/Show Dock Cmd-Option-D
28 Show Spaces F8
29 Show All Windows F9
30 Show Application Windows F10
31 Show Desktop F11
32 Show Dashboard F12

Spotlight

33 Search Field Cmd-Space
34 Window Cmd-Option-Space

Display

35 Decrease Brightness F14
36 Increase Brightness F15

These shortcuts haven't received much changed compare to Mac OS X Tiger. Only Front Row, Quick Dictionary, and Spaces are considered new on Leopard.

Categories: Leopard, Popular, Tips and Tricks
Tags: Dictionary, Leopard, Shortcut

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5 Comments

Jay 

Great tip that should be shouted from the roof tops. Thank you usingmac.com.

kambizpascia 

great blog thank you
In fierfox dont work ctrl+mac+D ?

nick 

I second that the quick dictionary command doesn't work in Firefox (2.0.0.10)

Isaac 

Quick Dictionary and the Front Row shortcut were both in tiger. They are not new to leopard. There was even a quick tip video for quick dictionary months before leopard was released.

Thanks for the collection of shortcuts. bookmarking.

Melina 

very interesting. i'm adding in RSS Reader