Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Pressing F5 in a text field
More Mac 101, TUAW tips for new and returning Mac users. If you're typing in a text field (in Safari, TextEdit, or most any Mac OS X app), you can press F5 while your cursor rests in a particular word to see a list of words that begin with the letters after the last space.
Holding down Option and Pressing Escape works, too.
So, for example, if you type create, you get a list of words including create, created, and creates.
If there are a lot of words in the list, it only shows the first 100 results, sorted alphabetically. The results come from Mac OS X's built-in dictionary.
This trick is useful for when you have a word on the tip of your tongue, need help with possessive apostrophes, or are stuck on a crossword clue.
[Via AppleGroup]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Alex said 12:32PM on 8-13-2008
Wow! Very neat! Did not know this one! Thanks!
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Oliver said 12:47PM on 8-13-2008
whoa, that's an awesome tip! i can't believe i didn't know that!!! give me more!
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Joseph Crawford said 1:00PM on 8-13-2008
Thanks for this tip, I had no idea that this was possible but it will come in very handy.
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Jeff said 2:00PM on 8-13-2008
That is the awesomely greatest tip-off ever.
(See what I did there? I used he F5 button to make the words bigger, less short.)
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Hickeroar said 1:09PM on 8-13-2008
Except for the fact that apple has overlapped function keys on almost all F keys now so it's (in most cases) fn-F5
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Mark Priestap said 1:45PM on 8-13-2008
Yeah thanks! Very helpful.
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bixmen said 1:52PM on 8-13-2008
This is awesome! Did I not read a manual somewhere, where is this documented?!?
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totoro said 1:55PM on 8-13-2008
Cool tip.
Btw, in Safari for Windows, hitting F5 reloads the browser window. Hitting F5 within a text box brings up a warning requestor asking if you really want to reload the browser window :p
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juniper said 2:19PM on 8-13-2008
Just one of those things that life long mac users would have never known about!
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Coke Zero Vanilla said 8:41PM on 8-13-2008
Option-Esc is a bit more awkward but does the same thing, in cases where the function key version doesn't work.
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Bassir said 2:34PM on 8-13-2008
Too bad I set F5 to Spaces.
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Dan Sheerman said 4:27AM on 8-14-2008
Ditto to that. Option-Esc will have to suffice =)
John said 3:46PM on 8-13-2008
The escape key works by itself. No need to press Option as well.
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Mattyohe said 3:06PM on 8-13-2008
Option is not necessary, just ESC will do.
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Pete said 3:35PM on 8-13-2008
Option is necessary sometimes. Esc alone doesn't work at all in safari (at least for me). But option does. In TextEdit, esc works on its own. Of course in Firefox, it doesn't work at all, as FF doesn't seem to use native text inputs.
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Max said 3:39PM on 8-13-2008
This also works in Omniweb. Nice tip, this was new to me too.
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Christopher Miller said 4:38PM on 8-13-2008
...so I thought, "OK, let's see how this works up in the Google search field" (in my Safari browser). I type in 'goog', hit F5 and get a list of 'googol'-related words, but no 'Google" in sight. Add an l, try it again, and nothing shows up at all! Looks like Dictionary needs to be updated, methinks...
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Richard said 3:31AM on 8-14-2008
Since no-one has mentioned it I suppose you all know that kind:mail does the same trick for mail messages? With a more refined search this might actually be useful for scanning through messages.
Juniper said 4:28PM on 8-13-2008
No, it does not work with out escape in safari.
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Palms831 said 5:27PM on 8-13-2008
Apple should update it. It's cool but it's nothing like the iphone's and it doesn't suggest words you type more often or that are contained in your address book.
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