If you’ve just made the switch to Mac, most likely from Windows or Linux, one of the first things that you should do is set up your Mac to your specific preferences. The Mac System Preferences pane is a good place to start, as most adjustments that you will want to make will be located within this panel. For a new Mac user, some of these options are pretty straightforward, where others are not. Here is Mac System Preferences explained.
To get started, open up the System Preferences window on your Mac computer. You can do this by clicking Finder > Applications > System Preferences or by clicking the System Preferences icon in the dock, which may be there by default.
With System Preferences open, you will notice several different icons, each containing their own set of “sub preferences”. Let’s start with the first option, Appearance.
Appearance
Clicking the Appearance icon within System Preferences will give you a new subset of customizable “appearance” options for your Mac. Here are some explanations of each.
· Appearance – The overall look of buttons, menus, and windows. By default, you can select Blue or Graphite for this option.
· Highlight Color – For selected text. You can choose from a wide variety of colors for text highlights. Graphite, Silver, Blue, Gold, Red, Orange, Green, Purple, or Other, which allows you to specify a custom color.
· Place scroll arrows – For this option, you have two major choices: Together or At top and bottom. Basically, this feature controls the layout of the scroll bar/arrows on your Mac. Here is an example:
· Click in the scroll bar to – This option is pretty self explanatory. You can choose whether or not you want to jump to the next page, or jump to the spot that’s clicked.
· Use smooth scrolling – It is recommended that you leave this option checked, or check this option if not already done so. Smooth scrolling basically helps your Mac display certain texts and graphics properly.
· Double-click a window’s title bar to maximize – This option is pretty self explanatory. If selected, you can simply double click the top bar of a window to maximize the view.
· Number or recent items – You can select up to 50 recent items to be displayed for quick access. Alternatively, you can choose None to turn off recent items.
· Use LCD font smoothing when available – It is recommended that you leave this box checked, as it assists with a sharp, non choppy text display in some situations.
· Turn off text smoothing for font sizes _ and smaller – Mainly, smaller fonts may not require smoothing as they are not as difficult to render. It is recommended that you leave this option as 4.
That’s Mac Appearance System Preferences explained. Next up, learn how to change your Desktop & Screen Saver, and more.
