Services on Mac
Master Services on Mac
Discover more about a really useful tool that helps to get things done
Image credit: Apple Inc
IT WILL TAKE
10 minutes
YOU WILL LEARN
How to customise the
Services menu and create handy shortcuts
YOU’LL NEED
Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Although the feature was introduced in 2009 with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, it’s fair to say that Services remains a bit of a mystery for the majority of Apple computer users.
Once discovered, however, it will likely stick in your mind as you begin to realise just how it can make your workflow more efficient and productive. That’s because Services lets you use an app and immediately access features that have been created for other apps. For example, if you highlight some text in Pages, you will be able to create a TextEdit document using the words or use them as the basis of a search in Finder. What’s more, you can decide which services will and won’t appear and you can set up menu shortcuts too. The only downside is that a lot of app developers still haven’t worked out how useful Services can be – some apps, such as Evernote, don’t even allow access to it any more. Let’s have a play around and see what can be done.