Navigate Large Documents in a Snap with These Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

Here are some quick OS X keyboard shortcuts that can save you some time while navigating long documents or websites. Everyone knows that the Command key (⌘) is arguably the most important modifier in OS X, and used for functions like cut, copy, paste, and Spotlight, but you can also use the Command key in conjunction with the keyboard arrow keys to quickly jump to the top or bottom of a document or page.
To try it out, open a lengthy pages document or website, something long enough that you would normally have to scroll down to reach the bottom. Now press Command and the Down arrow on your keyboard and you’ll be instantly taken to the very bottom of the document or page. Press Command and Up to jump back up to the top.
The above commands work for any Mac-compatible keyboard, but if you have an Apple keyboard with the Function key, a few more shortcuts become available. In addition to Command-Up and Command-Down, users can press Function-Left and Function-Right to achieve the same result (that is, jump to the top or bottom of a document, respectively).
Further, users can jump up or down a single page at a time by pressing Function-Up and Function-Down, respectively. Here’s a table for quick reference:
[table id=3 /]
Note that these commands can be easy to mix up, and users might find themselves pressing Command-Right or Command-Left with the intention of jumping to the top or bottom of a page. While this mistake won’t do anything at all in a word processing app like Pages, it will actually trigger the Next/Previous page function in a Web browser like Safari. Just keep that in mind if you’re trying to navigate a long website and find yourself instead jumping back and forth between pages.

Longtime computer users likely recognize that these shortcuts duplicate the Home, End, and Page Up/Down keys, and that’s true. Traditional keyboards, like the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad, Apple Extended Keyboard, and many PC keyboards, have dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys. But the age of smaller and thinner devices has necessitated a shrinking of the keyboards found on laptops and desktops, and most keyboards today, especially from Apple, lack these special navigation keys.
As a result, these useful time-saving keyboard shortcuts have been hidden in recent years behind the Command and Function modifiers, with many new Mac users completely oblivious to their existence. It’s true that Apple makes navigating OS X with a mouse or trackpad a slick and smooth experience, but any function that keeps a user’s hands on the keyboard is almost always more efficient.