Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

Getting Help in Mac OS X

It's a good thing you've got a book about Mac OS X in your hands, because you won't get much help from Apple. The only user manual you get with Mac OS X is the Help → Mac Help command, which you can also summon by pressing ⌘-?. You get a Web browser–like program that reads a set of help files that reside in your System → Library folder.

You're expected to find the topic you want in one of these two ways:

• Drill down. The starting screen offers several "quick click" topics that may interest you (Figure 1-24). If so, keep clicking text headings until you find a topic that you want to read.

  You can backtrack by clicking the Back (left-pointing arrow) button at the top of the browser window.

  

  Figure 1-24. The Mac OS X Help system no longer bunches together the help pages from every program on your Mac, as it did in previous versions. When you're in the Finder, you get the general Macintosh help screens. When you're in iPhoto, you get only iPhoto help screens. And so on. But using the Home pop-up menu, you can switch to another program's Help system even if that program isn't open.

• Use the "Ask a Question" blank. Type the phrase you want, such as printing or switching applications, into the blank at the top of the window, and then press Return.

  The Mac responds by showing you a list of help-screen topics that may pertain to what you need; see Figure 1-25 for details.

Figure 1-25. The bars indicate the Mac's "relevance" rating—how well it thinks each help page matches your search. Double-click a topic's name to open the help page. If it isn't as helpful as you hoped, click the Back button (the left-pointing arrow) at the top of the window to return to the list of relevant topics. Click the little Home button to return to the Help Center's welcome screen.