Chapter 3. Spotlight

very computer offers a way to find files. And every system offers several different ways to open them. But Spotlight, the star feature of Tiger, combines these two functions in a way that's so fast, so efficient, so spectacular, it reduces much of what you've read in the previous chapters to irrelevance.

That may sound like breathless hype, but wait till you try it. You'll see.

The Spotlight Menu

See the little magnifying-glass icon in your menu bar? That's the mouse-driven way to open the Spotlight search box.

The other way is to press ⌘-Space bar. If you can memorize only one keystroke on your Mac, that's the one to learn. It works at the desktop, but also when you're working in another program.

Tip

You can designate one of your F-keys (top row of the keyboard) to open Spotlight, if you prefer. Choose

image with no caption

System Preferences, click Spotlight, and use the "Spotlight menu keyboard shortcut" pop-up menu.

In any case, the Spotlight text box appears just below your menu bar.

Begin typing to identify what you want to find and open. For example, if you're trying to find a file called "Pokémon Fantasy League.doc," typing just pok or leag would probably work.

As you type, a menu begins to grow downward from the search box, listing everything Spotlight can find containing what you've typed so far. (This is a live, interactive search; that is, Spotlight modifies the menu of search ...

Get Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.