Weekend tips and tricks

The following is a set of tips and tricks to try out when using your Mac this weekend. This week's installation offers customization of your menu bar, changing default applications to open specific file types, finding vCards in Address Book groups, and creating text clippings for copy/paste use. 

Determine if a contact is in multiple groups in Address Book 
If you have a large amount of contacts in your Address Book and you're constantly trying to figure out if that contact is in multiple groups--the feature is built-in. Simply select the vCard of the contact you wish to check. Press and hold the Command/Apple key. This will highlight the groups containing that vCard.

Create text clippings 
Create a text clipping by highlighting the text you would like to use. Click and drag the highlighted text to the desktop. The resulting file will automatically copy to the clipboard when double-clicked, making it ready to paste into documents.

Move menu bar icons 
Most applications that install icons in the Mac OS X menu bar allow you to move or delete those icons by using a simple key and drag command. Hold down the (Alt/Option) key and click and drag the icon you would like to move. If you want to delete the icon, move it off the menu bar and let go of the mouse button.

Change the default program to open files 
You can change the default program that is used to open a particular file type. For example, if you would like to use Pages to open all DOC files instead of Microsoft Word, or all JPEG files with Photoshop instead of Preview.

1. Choose a file representing the file type you would like to change. 
2. Use the command (Command + I) to "Get Info" on the file. (You may also right-click, Get Info, or highlight the file and in the Finder menu bar select File > Get Info.) 
3. Under the drill-down option for "Open with:" select the application you would like to have as the default. 
4. Click the "Change All..." button and each file type will open with the newly assigned default application.