My 6 favourite keyboard shortcuts
You will be very grateful that you learned these 6 keyboard shortcuts. They all use the Command (Cmd) key. These simple strokes on your keyboard will speed up video production:
- Cmd X
- Cmd C
- Cmd V
- Cmd Z
- Cmd S
- Cmd/Shift/4
Summary of this keyword shortcuts page
Before going on, you may want to watch the 2 minute video below. It will help you to visualize the rest of this web page.
keyboard shortcuts Cmd X and Cmd V
Think of X as symbolizing a pair of scissors. It cuts the selected item out and saves it in the clipboard. In this animated GIF the writer wants to move the word “above” to the end of the sentence. He selects the word, presses Cmd X to delete and save the word in the clipboard. He moves the cursor to the end of the line and presses Cmd V to paste it.
Cmd C
“C” stands for copy. To make an animated GIF like the one here:
- Drag and drop an image onto a new Keynote slide.
- Press Cmd C 3 times
- Move your images into whatever locations you want.
- Add whatever Keynote Effects you want.
- Click play and record with Screenflow.
Cmd Z, the keyboard shortcuts lifesaver
Cmd Z can be a real life saver. Expect to delete the wrong material often. When that happens, simple click Cmd Z to delete the previous action. Click Cmd Z twice to delete the previous 2 actions.
In the animated GIF here, someone wanted to delete the end off of a video clip. He pressed Split Clip and then pressed the delete key before selecting the end of the video clip. That deleted the wrong clip snippet. To reverse the problem, he simply pressed Cmd Z, clicked on the end snippet and pressed the Delete key. The problem was fixed.
Cmd/Shift/4
Press Cmd, Shift and 4 simultaneously to copy any part of the document you are working on.
There are two uses for using Cmd/Shift/4. The main one is to take a screenshot of a portion of a page. The other reason is to find the size of the screenshot you are taking. In this animated GIF the image will be 253 x 201 pixels.
If you want to make a moving copy of the animated GIF, you
would record the page with ScreenFlow. Then 
you set the Canvas size using the icon on the left-hand side of the page.
I usually double the canvas size to make it easier to work with. Instead of using 253 x 201, I would double that to 506 x 402 pixels.
Cmd S
The last of the keyboard shortcuts is Cmd S, probably the most important one. When you are creating a ScreenFlow video, a Keynote slide, a web page or anything else with your computer, save often. You do that by pressing Cmd S.
Things often go wrong. The power may go off. More likely, you make some stupid mistake that ruins your work. If you had saved it a minute earlier, you can correct the mistake immediately.
Ctrl/Cmd/D
Hold a cursor over a word in Apple Pages. Simultaneously press control/command/D. A dictionary and a thesaurus will show up.