How To Select Multiple Items On Your Mac Keyboard

The Mac keyboard has a few different symbols and characters that you won’t find on your standard QWERTY. There are also several different functions that can be accessed from the primary Mac keyboard. You might not see it, but your Mac keyboard has more than just letters, numbers, and symbols. It also has some hidden special characters, as well as options for copy, paste, and other features. But what if you need to switch between a few different items? For example, let’s say you have an assignment with multiple references to choose from—either 1 Chronicle or 2 Chronicles. How do you quickly switch between them in an efficient way? Read on to learn how to select multiple items on your Mac keyboard!

How to Select Multiple Items on Mac Keyboard

1. Select the first item

For this example, let’s say you want to select the first reference from 1 Chronicle. To do so, press and hold the Command key on your Mac keyboard. While holding down Command, use your left arrow key to highlight the first reference from 1 Chronicle.

2. Select the next item

Now that you have selected the first item, you can easily select the second item by pressing and holding Command + Shift + right arrow. This will highlight all of your selections at once!

3. Deselect an item

If you accidentally select an item that you don’t want to include in your selection, simply press Command + Shift + left arrow to deselect it.

4. Copy or Cut

If you want to copy or cut the selection, select the text and then use Command + C to copy and Command + X to cut.

5. Paste

If you want to paste the selection into a different location, select the text and use Command + V to paste.

6. Undo

If you accidentally delete an item or change your selection, use Command + Z to undo the change.

7. Open a New Window

One of the best features of Mac OS is that it allows you to open multiple items in separate windows. If you have a few references that you need to work with, but don’t need them all at once, simply highlight each reference and then use Command + N to open each one in a new window! It’s that easy!

8. Close a Window

If you want to close a window without closing your entire document, simply click on the red button in the top left corner of your window (it will say “Close” when selected). This will close the active window without closing your entire document!

9. Close All Windows & Exit Doc

If you want to close all windows and exit out of your document, click on File > Close All Windows & Exit Doc (or press Command + W). This will close all windows and exit out of your current document!

10. See More Keyboard Shortcuts

If you want to see more of the keyboard shortcuts available in Mac OS, click on the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen and select “System Preferences”. From there, click “Keyboard Shortcuts” and you can see a list of all of the keyboard shortcuts available!

Using the Option Key on your Mac Keyboard

• Open your document in Pages.

• Select the first reference in the table of contents that you want to place in your document. In this example, we’re going to use 1 Chronicle.

• Highlight the reference by clicking and dragging over it with your mouse.

• Press Command+C (⌘C) to copy the highlighted text from 1 Chronicle into your clipboard memory (Mac’s temporary storage).

• Press Option+Command+V (⌥⌘V) on the Mac keyboard to paste 1 Chronicle into its correct location in your document, replacing whatever was previously there. The Option key was used because you only want to replace a single item, not all of them at once.

• Repeat these steps for whichever references you want to replace with different ones from another book or chapter of scripture from the same book of scripture on your Mac keyboard!

Using the Multi-Touch Trackpad to Select Multiple Items

1. Click your trackpad with two fingers. This will select the top item in your list.

2. Click your trackpad with two fingers again. This will select the next item in the list.

3. Continue clicking until you’ve selected all of the items you want to use or work with.

4. Click with two fingers again to select everything you’ve selected.

5. You can now perform any action you want on all of the selected items. For example, if you have three items selected and click Edit > Copy, all three items will be copied to your clipboard.

Using your Mouse to Select Multiple Items

• Click the first item you want to select.
• While holding down the Control key, click the additional items you want to add to your selection.
• Click an action in the top menu bar, such as Copy or Cut.
• Click the destination where you want the selected items to be placed—like a blank document or a folder on your desktop.
• If your selections are not going where you expect them to go, try clicking again on the destination and then once more on each item you want to select.

Using Keyboard Shortcuts to Select Multiple Items on Your Mac Keyboard ‍

1. If you don’t have a touch ID-enabled Mac keyboard, then it’s time for some keyboard shortcuts! To select multiple items on your Mac keyboard using keyboard shortcuts, hold down option + shift as you move from item to item with your cursor. As soon as an item is highlighted in blue, release option/shift and continue moving through the items until everything is highlighted in blue (or until there are no more items left). This will allow you to quickly select multiple items by navigating between them with one hand—and it will allow for quick copying/pasting with just the other hand! This method works great for selecting multiple paragraphs of text or images in a row as well!
2. Alternatively, you can use the same method as above, but instead of holding down option/shift, simply hold down the command key instead. This will allow you to select multiple items on your Mac keyboard by simply navigating through them with your cursor.

3. Although we’ve already discussed this in a previous post, it’s worth mentioning again you can also select multiple items on your Mac keyboard by holding down the command and clicking each item that you would like to select!

4. The last method for selecting multiple items on your Mac keyboard is using the command + click shortcut key. This will allow you to highlight specific text or images (or even entire paragraphs) and then copy/paste them into another document! If there are certain items that you want to copy and paste more often than others, then command + click each item one by one until they are all highlighted in blue. Then, right-click > copy/paste! This is an extremely useful feature for writers since it allows for quick copying of specific parts of a document without having to search through the entire document for that one line or paragraph that needs to be included in a new draft. As an added bonus, using this method will save time since it doesn’t require any additional keystrokes!

Conclusion

Selecting multiple items on your Mac can be helpful when copying or pasting items. Selecting multiple items might feel a bit unfamiliar if you’re new to the Mac keyboard, but it’s actually really easy. The best way to select multiple items on your Mac is to use the Option key on your keyboard. If you’d like to select a range of items, such as all of the items between two specific items, you can hold down the Option key while pressing the arrow keys.