Reader John Fieser longs for keys missing from his MacBook. He writes:
I often work with documents up to 200 pages long. Getting to the end of one quickly is a big help. Unlike with my older Mac (Cube with OS 9.2.2) using Word 2001, I am unable to move the cursor to the end of a Word 2004 document on my MacBook. The Command-End keyboard shortcut doesn’t work, presumably because the MacBook keyboard has no dedicated “End” key. And “Customize Keyboard” has no “go to end of document” command to select. Any ideas?
Take a gander at the fn key next to the Control key on your MacBook’s keyboard. This is the key to your problem. Specifically, try opening one of these documents, pressing fn-Command-right arrow, and see what happens. You should be taken to the end of the document. Similarly, press fn-Command-left arrow, and you’re transported to the top of the document.
So, for Microsoft Word, these are your Home and End keyboard shortcuts. Regrettably, this key combination doesn’t work in every application because Home and End keys–much to the frustration of Windows switchers–are not implemented consistently across applications. In some cases you’ll find that fn-right arrow moves you to the end of a document in some applications. In other applications, no amount of fn pushing moves you quickly through a document (though fn-down arrow and fn-up arrow will allow you to scroll through windows one page/window at a time).