Editing text with Cocoa text shortcuts
In any user interface element that accepts text, there are a set of text editing keyboard shortcuts that work in almost every application. Most are not listed in menus or only in certain applications.
Here’s a great link that documents most of the shortcuts. Note that the document is missing a few newer ones and there are a few that have changed since it was published, but this is the best resource I’ve found.
Here’s a subset of them that I find particularly useful.
| Keyboard shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌥ ⌫ | Delete the previous word (if you make a typing mistake and it spans multiple words, this is a really quick way to delete what you just typed) |
| ⌥⇡ or ⌥⇣ | Move cursor to beginning or end of paragraph |
| ⌘⇡ or ⌘⇣ | Move cursor to beginning or end of document |
| ⇧⇡ or ⇧⇣ | Select upwards/downwards one line |
| ⌥⇧⇡ or ⌥⇧⇣ | Select upwards/downwards one paragraph |
| ⌘⇧⇡ or ⌘⇧⇣ | Select upwards/downwards to beginning/end of document |
| ⌃⇡ or ⌃⇣ | Scroll one page up or down (most keyboards don't have dedicated keys for this anymore) |
| ⌃A | Move to beginning of line (super useful in Terminal) |
| ⌃E | Move to end of line |