I recently had a switcher friend ask me about selecting and moving around in text in OS X. It occurred to me that there are probably a lot of new Mac users abusing their arrows keys as a result of not knowing how to select text so here is a quick review.

Moving by the letter …

Arrow Keys

Selecting one letter at a time …

Shift + Arrow Keys

Moving one word at a time …

Option + Arrow Keys (right and left)

Selecting one word at a time …

Shift + Option + Arrow Keys (right and left)

Moving one paragraph at a time …

Option + Arrow Keys (up and down)

Selecting one paragraph at a time …

Shift + Option + Arrow Keys (up and down)

Move to Top or Bottom …

Command + Arrow (up and down)

Select to Top or Bottom …

Shift + Command + Arrow (up and down)

Move to Front/End of Line …

Command + Arrow (right and left)

Select to Front/End of Line …

Shift + Command + Arrow (right and left)

Did I miss anything?