Want to toggle OS X’s Accessibility options quickly? Get there in one keystroke with this quick Mac tip!
Apple builds great accessibility features into OS X Yosemite, to help users with physical limitations get the most out of their Macs.
The Accessibility system preference gives you broad control over how information is displayed on your Mac, including zoom functions to see parts of the screen better, adding media descriptions and captions; using switch control; enabling dictation and more.
If you’re able to use a keyboard, it’s easy enough to pull up Accessibility simply by holding down the command key and pressing the space bar to bring up Spotlight, then type Accessibility. Spotlight’s search results will show you the system preference, which you can access using your mouse or cursor keys.
But there’s a quicker way to get to commonly used Accessibility functions, and that brings us to this week’s tip. Just hold down the command and option keys, then type F5.
That will pop up a window entitled Accessibility Options, where you can toggle zoom settings (enabling using keyboard shortcuts or scroll gestures); VoiceOver; sticky, slow and mouse key settings; or invert display color and adjust contrast.
What’s more, you can click on the Keyboard Shortcuts… button to pull up that system preference pane, or click on the Preferences button to pull up the full Accessibility system preference.
Hopefully this tip will keep you working more and fiddling with preferences less. Let me know if you have any questions!