Here are some '''Tips and Tricks''' that you may find useful when using VoiceOver or, in some cases, simply using the Macintosh.
General VoiceOver Tips
Pressing the CTRL key when VO is speaking will stop its speech. Pressing the CTRL key once again will start the speech from where it left off. In effect, it works like a "Pause" button. In Leopard, pressing the ctrl key twice close together will stop speech instead of pause.
In Apple Mail, you can interact with the message header, navigate to the sender's name then press VO keys+space to activate a pop-up menu. In this menu, you can "Add Sender to the Address Book", "Copy the Address", "Reply to Sender" and more. This is especially useful when you belong to a discussion list and you wish to respond only to the sender instead of the whole list.
In the Item and Link Chooser menus, typing a string will narrow your list of choices. This string is not limited to the starting characters. If you make an error and the list is too narrow, simply press the "Delete" key to return the list to its original choices.
In Tiger, navigating around the Accounts system Preference is often a very "busy" affair. Frustrating to say the least. Use the Item chooser and your tab key and you will see marked improvement.
In the Date and Time System Preference you can enter the first so many letters of the nearest large city instead of using the visual map. If that city exists in the database, your Time Zone is now set correctly.
When using the VO-a (Read All) command to read documents in Preview or TextEdit, remember to Interact With the text area first. This will allow you to easily pause your speech and restart it once again with VO-a from exactly where you left off.
You can get a menu of VO Search commands by pressing VO-shift-f. This brings up choices like next/previous bold text, next/previous italic text, next/previous underlined text and many more.
You can use the Preview application to read documents that are normally not accessible to VO (such as Word or Excel documents) by using the "Save to PDF" option of the Print dialog outlined below in the General Macintosh Tips section..
Using the dock
You can add files, folders and servers to the Dock using an Automator workflow found here.
You can rearrange the items on the Dock when in the Dock by holding down the Option key while pressing the left or right arrow keys.
You can have an application remain on the Dock by first opening the application, then navigating to that item on the Dock, pressing the down arrow and choosing "Keep in Dock".
You can remove an item from the Dock by navigating to that item then pressing the down arrow to bring up the Contextual menu and choosing "Remove from dock".
In Leopard, you can press the first letter of the dock item you wish to open to take you quickly to that item. Then just press return or VO-space to activate it. If you have more than one dock item with that starting letter, try two or three of the first part of the item.
General Macintosh Tips and tricks
You can listen to music using Quick Look. This is an easy way to sample music without importing it to iTunes. Simply have the music in a folder, press cmd-a to Select All, then press space to activate the Quick Look panel. You will be presented with a dialog where you can press the Start Slide Show button. Press your arrow keys to go to the Next and Previous songs. Note that Quick Look will only play items that are at the current folder level. If songs are nested within another folder, they folder will be opened, not he items within it.
You can create a .zip file of an item in the Finder by navigating to it, pressing VO keys+shift+m to get a Contextual menu and choosing "Compress". In Tiger, this item is "Create Archive". this will create a .zip compressed file openable by Mac or Windows.
You can create a PDF document from any application that allows printing. Simply press cmd+p to bring up the Print dialog, then navigate to the item labelled PDF. In Tiger you'll need to press VO keys+i to access the "Item Chooser" menu, navigate to the first "Unknown" and then press Return. Press VO keys+shift+space to bring up a pop-up menu where you have the option to "Save As PDF". Then simply choose where you'd like to save it.
You can cycle through open windows in a given application by pressing cmd+` (accent), the key just to the left of the number 1 on the top row of the main part of the keyboard.
You can cycle through applications by pressing cmd+tab. You can also use cmd+shift+tab to go right back to the one you were just in.
In Safari, you can set what in effecdt is a temporary bookmark. Press cmd+option+k to mark the current page for "Snap Back". As you surf the web elsewhere, simply press cmd+option+p to "Snap Back" to that page whenever you want.
You can quickly start a download in Safari by pressing option+mouse click on the download link.
You can create "Locations" in your Network System Preference that save varied network information for each location. For example, create a location called "Work" which has a static IP address and Proxy Server info. Create another location called "Home" where Proxy info is not enabled and you have a dynamic IP address. This is especially useful for those with laptops going between Home and Work.
You can create a "Burn Folder" on your Desktop where you can place items that you wish to burn onto CD or DVD. When in the Finder, simply go under the File menu, choose "New Burn Folder". Name it whatever you'd like then choose "Burn CD" once you're ready.
You can open a document in another relevant application by first selecting the document, pressing VO keys+shift+m to bring up a Contextual menu and then navigating to the "Open With" submenu and choosing the application.
You can quickly instruct itunes to either Create or choose a different Library by holding down the Option key while iTunes is starting up.
The following keys when pressed during the startup chime perform a special task. "c" will force your Mac to start from a CD/DVD inserted in your drive. "t" forces your Mac to go into Target mode. "shift" starts your Mac in "Safe" mode. Holding down the mouse button will eject any CD/DVDs from the drive. "x" will force your Mac to start in OS X if you have a Classic capable unit.