. The Spotlight Menu See the little magnifying-glass icon in your menu bar? That's the mouse-driven way to open the Spotlight search box. | . The Spotlight Menu See the little magnifying-glass icon in your menu bar That s the mouse-driven way to open the Spotlight search box. The other way is to press -Space bar. If you can memorize only one keystroke on your Mac that s the one to learn. It works both at the desktop and in other programs. Tip You can designate one of your F-keys top row of the keyboard to open Spotlight if you prefer. Choose System Preferences click Spotlight and use the Spotlight menu keyboard shortcut pop-up menu. In any case the Spotlight text box appears just below your menu bar Figure 3-1 . Begin typing to identify what you want to find and open. For example if you re trying to find a file called Pokemon Fantasy typing just pok or leag would probably suffice. Spotlight doesn t find text in the middles of words though it searches from the beginnings of words. A menu immediately appears below the search box listing everything Spotlight can find containing what you ve typed so far. This is a live interactive search that is Spotlight modifies the menu of search results as you type. The menu lists every file folder program email message address book entry calendar appointment picture movie PDF document music file Web bookmark Microsoft Office Word PowerPoint Excel Entourage document System Preferences panel To Do item chat transcript Web site in your History list and even font that contains what you typed regardless of its name or folder location. Figure 3-1. Left Press -Space or click the magnifying-glass icon to make the search bar appear. Right As you type Spotlight builds the list of every match it can find neatly organized by type programs documents folders images PDF documents and so on. If you see the icon you were hoping to dig up just click it to open it. Or use the arrow keys to walk down the menu and then press Return or Enter to open it. If you click an application it pops onto the screen. If you select a System Preferences panel System Preferences opens and .
