macOS Big Sur For Dummies
1st Edition
Published on 12. October 2020
528 pages
978-1-119-73011-8 (ISBN)
Description
Your "get-started" guide to the world of macOS Big Sur
Wherever you like to Mac--at home in front of your trusty iMac or over a coffee with your portable MacBook Air--macOS provides you with the seamless, efficient, and reliable user experience that makes these devices so famously a pleasure to use. macOS Big Sur For Dummies is here to heighten the experience for new users and upgraders alike by providing the very latest on the ways macOS Big Sur can enhance how you work and play.
Written in a no-jargon style by Bob LeVitus--the Houston Chronicle's much-loved "Dr. Mac" since 1996--this guide starts with the basics, like getting set up, and explains more advanced uses, like making music and movies, exploring the expanding universe of apps and giving tips on how to save time and enhance productivity along the way. With this book, you'll learn to
* Set up and connect your Mac
* Get friendly with Siri
* Enhance your world with apps
* Work better and faster
Use the comprehensive capabilities of macOS Big Sur to do anything and everything you would like to do--and do it even better. For beginners and experts alike, macOS Big Sur For Dummies is the best way to step into the magical world of getting things done with Mac.
Wherever you like to Mac--at home in front of your trusty iMac or over a coffee with your portable MacBook Air--macOS provides you with the seamless, efficient, and reliable user experience that makes these devices so famously a pleasure to use. macOS Big Sur For Dummies is here to heighten the experience for new users and upgraders alike by providing the very latest on the ways macOS Big Sur can enhance how you work and play.
Written in a no-jargon style by Bob LeVitus--the Houston Chronicle's much-loved "Dr. Mac" since 1996--this guide starts with the basics, like getting set up, and explains more advanced uses, like making music and movies, exploring the expanding universe of apps and giving tips on how to save time and enhance productivity along the way. With this book, you'll learn to
* Set up and connect your Mac
* Get friendly with Siri
* Enhance your world with apps
* Work better and faster
Use the comprehensive capabilities of macOS Big Sur to do anything and everything you would like to do--and do it even better. For beginners and experts alike, macOS Big Sur For Dummies is the best way to step into the magical world of getting things done with Mac.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus has written the "Dr. Mac" column for the Houston Chronicle since 1996. A devoted Mac enthusiast, he has written or cowritten a long list of how-to books about macOS, iPhone, iPad, Office for the Mac, and GarageBand. He's also a regular contributor to various tech publications.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- About This Book
- Foolish Assumptions
- Icons Used in This Book
- Beyond the Book
- Where to Go from Here
- Part 1 macOS Basics
- Chapter 1 macOS Big Sur 101 (Prerequisites: None)
- Gnawing to the Core of macOS
- A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner (or Any User)
- Turning the dang thing on
- What you should see on startup
- Shutting down properly
- A few things you should definitely not do with your Mac
- Point-and-click 101
- Not Just a Beatles Movie: Help and the Help Menu
- Chapter 2 Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!)
- Touring Finder and Its Desktop
- Anatomy of a Window
- Top o' the window to ya!
- A scroll new world
- (Hyper)active windows
- Dialog Dealie-Boppers
- Working with Windows
- Opening and closing windows
- Resizing windows and window panes
- Moving windows
- Shuffling windows
- Menu Basics
- The ever-changing menu bar
- Contextual (shortcut) menus: They're sooo contextual!
- Recognizing disabled options
- Navigating submenus
- Under the Apple menu tree
- Using keyboard shortcut commands
- Chapter 3 What's Up, Dock?
- A Quick Introduction to Your Dock
- The default icons of the dock
- Trash talkin'
- Opening application menus on the dock
- Reading dock icon body language
- Opening files from the dock
- Customizing Your Dock
- Adding dock icons
- Removing an icon from the dock
- Resizing the dock
- What should you put on your dock?
- Setting your dock preferences
- Chapter 4 Getting to Know Finder and Its Desktop
- Introducing Finder and Its Minions: The Desktop and Icons
- Introducing the desktop
- Bellying up to the toolbar
- Figuring out what an icon is
- Identifying your Finder icons in the wild
- Aliases Are Awesome!
- Creating aliases
- Deleting aliases
- Hunting down an alias's parent
- The View(s) from a Window
- Moving through folders fast in Column view
- Perusing in Icon view
- Listless? Try touring folders in List view
- Hangin' in the Gallery (view)
- What's next on the (View) menu?
- Finder on the Menu
- The actual Finder menu
- Like a road map: The current folder's pop-up menu
- Going places with the Go menu
- Customizing Finder Windows
- Adding folders to the sidebar
- Setting Finder preferences
- Digging for Icon Data in the Info Window
- Chapter 5 Delving Even Deeper into Big Sur's Desktop and Finder
- Cleaning Up Your Desktop Automatically with Stacks
- Managing your Stacks
- Quick Actions: Now Playing All Over Big Sur
- Getting the most out of Markup
- Trimming video without launching an app
- Do It Quicker with Finder Quick Actions
- Creating PDFs without launching an app
- Creating custom Finder Quick Actions
- Four More Cool Big Sur Tricks
- Shooting screens
- Dynamic desktop images
- Recently used apps in the dock
- Mentions of Gallery view
- Part 2 How Stuff Works
- Chapter 6 Having It Your Way
- Introducing System Preferences
- The Desktop & Screen Saver System Preferences Pane
- The Desktop tab
- The Screen Saver tab
- The General System Preferences Pane
- Adjusting the Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad, and Other Hardware
- The Keyboard System Preferences pane
- The Mouse System Preferences pane
- The Bluetooth System Preferences pane
- The Trackpad System Preferences pane
- The Sound System Preferences Pane
- Changing sound effects
- Choosing output and input options
- Chapter 7 Opening and Saving Files
- A Quick Primer on Finding Files
- Understanding the macOS Folder Structure
- Understanding nested folders
- From the top: The Computer folder
- Peeking into the Applications folder
- Visiting the Library folders
- Let it be: The System folder
- There's no place like Home
- Your personal library card
- Saving Your Document Before It's Too Late
- Stepping through a basic save
- Save As versus Duplicate: Different names for the same result
- Open, Sez Me
- With drag-and-drop
- With a Quick Look
- When your Mac can't open a file
- With the application of your choice
- Chapter 8 File and Folder Management Made Easy
- Organizing Your Stuff in Folders
- Files versus folders
- Organizing your stuff with subfolders
- Creating new folders
- Navigating with spring-loaded folders
- Smart folders
- Shuffling Files and Folders
- Moving files and folders
- Selecting multiple icons
- Playing the icon name game: Renaming icons
- Renaming multiple icons at once
- Compressing files
- Getting rid of icons
- The Incredible iCloud Drive
- Chapter 9 Comprehending the macOS Clipboard
- Introducing the Clipboard
- Copying Files and Folders
- Pasting from the Clipboard
- Big Sur's Universal Clipboard
- Part 3 Getting Things Done
- Chapter 10 Five Terrific Time-Saving Tools
- With a Quick Look
- Share and share alike with the Share menu
- Slide into Slideshow (full-screen) mode
- Spotlight on Finding Files and Folders Faster
- Using the Find command
- Using the Spotlight menu and its keyboard shortcut
- Blast Off with Mission Control
- The Mission Control pane: It's painless
- Hot corners are hot stuff!
- Mission Control's Spaces from 30,000 feet (an overview)
- Getting around in space(s)
- Taking Control of Essential Settings
- Launchpad: The Place for Applications
- Chapter 11 Organizing Your Life
- Keeping Track with Calendar
- Navigating Calendar views
- Creating calendars
- Deleting a calendar
- Creating and managing events
- Reminders: Protection Against Forgetting
- Getting started with Reminders
- To do or not to do: Setting reminders
- Sharing lists and assigning reminders
- Everything You Need to Know about Notification Center
- Tweaking Notification settings
- Widget management 101
- Using Notification Center
- Use Notes for Making Notes
- Tracking Productivity with Screen Time
- Chapter 12 Are You Siri-ous?
- What Siri Can Do for You
- Working with Siri
- Making Siri Your Own
- Chapter 13 Maps Are Where It's At
- Finding Your Current Location with Maps
- Finding a Person, Place, or Thing
- Views, Zooms, and Pans
- Maps and Contacts
- Time-saving Map Tools: Favorites, Guides, and Recents
- Favorites
- Guides
- Recents
- Smart Map Tricks
- Get route maps and driving directions
- Get walking directions
- Get directions for public transportation
- Get traffic info in real time
- Flyovers and look arounds
- Do more on the Info sheet
- Chapter 14 Apps Born in iOS
- Taking Stock of the Market with Stocks
- Adding and deleting stocks, funds, and indexes
- Details, details, details
- Charting a course
- Read All about It in News
- What are your interests?
- How News works
- Managing your news
- Recording Memos with Voice Memos
- Recording a voice memo
- Listening to a voice memo
- Naming a voice memo
- Trimming a voice memo
- Controlling Lights, Locks, and More with Home
- Part 4 Getting Along with Others
- Chapter 15 (Inter)Networking
- Getting Connected to the Internet
- Your Internet service provider and you
- Plugging in your Internet-connection settings
- Browsing the Web with Safari
- Owning your toolbar
- Using the Safari sidebar
- Searching with Google
- Protect yourself from malice (and ads)
- Checking out Help Center
- Audio and Video Calls with FaceTime
- Chapter 16 Dealing with People
- Collecting Your Contacts
- Adding contacts
- Importing contacts from other programs
- Creating a basic group
- Setting up a smart group (based on contact criteria)
- Deleting a group or smart group
- Sync + Contacts = your contacts everywhere
- Chapter 17 Communicating with Mail and Messages
- Sending and Receiving Email with Mail
- Setting up Mail
- A quick overview of the toolbar
- Composing a new message
- Sending email from the Contacts app
- Checking your mail
- Dealing with spam
- Mailboxes smart and plain
- Changing your preferences
- Sign here, please
- Mail rules rule
- Take a (Quick) look and (Slide) show me some photos
- Markup and Mail Drop
- Communicating with Messages
- Chit-chatting with Messages
- Chapter 18 Sharing Your Mac and Liking It
- Introducing Networks and File Sharing
- Portrait of home office networking
- Three ways to build a network
- Setting Up File Sharing
- Access and Permissions: Who Can Do What
- Users and groups and guests
- Creating users
- macOS knows best: Folders shared by default
- Sharing a folder or disk by setting permissions
- Useful settings for permissions
- Unsharing a folder
- Connecting to a Shared Disk or Folder on a Remote Mac
- Changing Your Password
- Changing your account password on your Mac
- Changing the password of any account but your own on your Mac
- More Types of Sharing
- Sharing a screen
- Sharing the Internet
- And yet more ways to share
- Part 5 Getting Creative
- Chapter 19 The Musical Mac
- Apple Music and iTunes Match Rock!
- Introducing Music (the App Formerly Known as iTunes)
- Working with Media
- Adding songs
- Listening to Radio
- All about Playlists
- Creating a regular playlist
- Filtering your library
- Working with smart playlists
- Burning a playlist to CD
- Looking at the Genius playlist
- Chapter 20 The Multimedia Mac
- Playing Movies and Music in QuickTime Player
- Watching TV
- Using the Books App
- Buying an e-book or audiobook
- Shopping for e-books without Apple
- Reading an e-book
- Finding and Listening to Podcasts with the Podcasts App
- You're the Star with Photo Booth
- Viewing and Converting Images and PDFs in Preview
- Importing Media from a Camera or Camcorder
- Chapter 21 Words and Letters
- Processing Words with TextEdit
- Creating and composing a document
- Working with text
- Adding graphics to documents
- Font Mania
- Types of fonts
- Managing your fonts with Font Book
- Chapter 22 Publish or Perish: The Fail-Safe Guide to Printing
- Before Diving In . . .
- Ready: Connecting and Adding Your Printer
- Connecting your printer
- Setting up a printer for the first time
- One last thing: Printer sharing
- Set: Setting Up Your Document with Page Setup
- Print: Printing with the Print Sheet
- Printing a document
- Choosing among different printers
- Choosing custom settings
- Saving custom settings
- Preview and PDF Options
- Part 6 Care and Feeding
- Chapter 23 Features for the Way You Work
- Finally, a Dark Mode
- App Shopping, Improved
- Using Your iPhone as Your Mac's Camera or Scanner
- Talking and Listening to Your Mac
- Keyboard System Preferences pane: You talk and your Mac types
- Commanding your Mac by voice
- Listening to your Mac read for you
- Automatic Automation
- Script Editor app: Write and edit AppleScripts
- Automator app: Automate almost anything
- A Few More Useful Goodies
- Accessibility System Preferences pane: Make your Mac more accessible
- Battery and Energy Saver System Preferences panes: For energy conservation and sleep
- Bluetooth System Preferences pane: Where Bluetooth lives
- Ink System Preferences pane: Visible to pen-input tablet users only
- Automatic Login in the Users & Groups System Preferences pane: Don't bother with the login screen
- Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac
- Boot Camp Assistant app: Run Windows on your Mac . . . really
- AirPlay Mirroring
- Handoff
- Chapter 24 Safety First: Backups and Other Security Issues
- Backing Up Is (Not) Hard to Do
- Backing up with Big Sur's excellent Time Machine
- Backing up by using the manual, brute-force method
- Backing up by using commercial backup software
- Why You Need Two Sets of Backups
- Non-Backup Security Concerns
- About viruses and other malware
- Firewall: Yea or nay?
- Install recommended software updates
- Protecting Your Data from Prying Eyes
- Blocking or limiting connections
- Locking down files with FileVault
- Setting other options for security
- Chapter 25 Utility Chest
- In the Applications and Utilities Folders
- Calculator
- Activity Monitor
- Disk Utility
- Grapher
- Keychain Access
- Migration Assistant
- System Information
- Terminal
- Capturing Your Screen
- Big Sur screen-shooting 101
- Big Sur screen-shooting options
- Big Sur screen recording
- Chapter 26 Troubleshooting macOS
- About Startup Disks and Booting
- Finding or creating a startup disk
- They call it a prohibitory sign for a reason
- Recovering with Recovery HD
- Step 1: Run First Aid
- Step 2: Safe boot into Safe mode
- Step 3: Zapping the PRAM/NVRAM
- Step 4: Reinstalling macOS
- Step 5: Things to try before taking your Mac in for repair
- If Your Mac Crashes at Startup
- Optimizing Storage
- Part 7 The Part of Tens
- Chapter 27 Ten Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience
- Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts
- Improve Your Typing Skills
- Change Your Resolution
- Purchase a Faster Mac
- Add RAM
- Add a Second Display
- Use Your iPad as a Second Display
- Upgrade to a Solid-State Drive (SSD)
- Get More Storage
- Subscribe to My Free Newsletter
- Chapter 28 Ten Great Websites for Mac Freaks
- The Mac Observer
- Macworld
- TidBITS
- iMore
- AppleWorld.Today
- The Wirecutter
- Apple Support
- Other World Computing
- dealmac/dealnews
- Working Smarter for Mac Users
- Index
- EULA
