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Key Combinations

What exactly are key combinations? - Key combinations are combinations of keys on your Mac's keyboard that, when you pressed together, cause your Mac to perform a specific task. Note: key combinations only work on Mac computers with ADB or USB keyboards, which excludes the Mac 128k (Macintosh), Mac 512k, Mac 512ke, and the Mac Plus. Most of the key combinations listed here are for performing tasks when you Mac is starting up or for rescuing your Mac from a crash. There are other key combinations that are specified in the menus for that applications, for example:

-Q is almost always used as the command for quiting an application and is usually found in the "File" menu of that application.

What are the specific key combinations? - The folowing table shows a number of key combinations and the task that they perform.

Key Combination	Use
-Option-Esc	Force an application to quit
Control--Power	Force your Mac to restart
-Option-Shift-Delete	Boot your Mac from a floppy disk or a CD
-Option-Shift-Delete-#	Boot your Mac from a specific SCSI ID (#)
-Option-P-R	Zap your Mac's PRAM when it boots
-Option	Rebuild your Mac's Desktop file when it boots
Shift	Turn Extensions off when your Mac boots
Option	Close Finder windows when your Mac boots
	Turn Virtual Memory off when your Mac boots
Mouse Button	Eject a Boot Disk when your Mac Boots

How do I use key combinations? - If the "Use" column of the above table mentions anything about booting or starting up your Mac, then you need to press the keys combination when you first turn on your Mac. Otherwise, use them when your Mac is on.

I'm new to the Mac keyboard, what are the various keys? - The one key which you will most need to get yourself aquainted with is the (Command) key. This key functions much like the ALT key found on PC keyboards, it specifies that the key combination being pressed is a command. For example -Q almost always is a quit command, while using an operating system such as Windows, X Windows, or BeOS, ALT-X is almost always the quit (exit) command. The following is a picture of the key layout for an Apple Extended keyboard which contains all the keys possible on a Mac keyboard (some keyboards have fewer keys, but they usually only lack the Function keys and a Numeric pad):