Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition

Getting Help in OS X

It’s a good thing you’ve got a book about OS X in your hands, because the only user manual you get with it is the Help menu, a browser-like program that reads a set of help files that reside in your System→Library folder.

Figure 2-26. You don’t have to open the Help program to begin a search. No matter what program you’re in, typing a search phrase into the box shown here produces an instantaneous list of help topics, ready to read.

Tip

In fact, you may not even be that lucky. The general-information help page about each topic is on your Mac, but thousands of the more technical pages reside online and require an Internet connection to read.

You’re expected to find the topic you want in one of these three ways:

• Use the search box. When you click the Help menu, a tiny search box appears just beneath your cursor (Figure 2-26). You can type a few words here to specify what you want help with: “setting up printer,” “disk space,” whatever.

  

  Figure 2-27. The Help Center likes to help with big-ticket computer tasks like joining a network, setting up your email program, or browsing the Web. Once you click a top-tier topic (top), you get a details page (bottom) that offers a list of more finely grained step-by-steps. The Help windows try to be helpful by floating stubbornly in front ...