BBEdit Shortcuts
A list of the most popular shortcuts I use on BBEdit
BBEdit is one of my favorite applications. I have tried other applications, but more often I come back to the power and flexibility that BBEdit provides.
I have a lot of shortcuts set up to make it easy to use. This is the list of the most popular shortcuts that I use every day.
Top Ten Keyboard Shortcuts
Shortcut | Action | Description |
Save Current Selection as a Clipping | This quickly creates a BBEdit Clipping. BBEdit Clippings are snippets that appear as I am typing words. These save a lot of time typing the same thing over and over. I can go into the Clipping Folder to remove them if I don't think I'll use it again. This comes in handy when I am working on a short term project and need to type a name or phrase over and over. | |
Preview in BBEdit | By default, Command-P is Print. I find that in BBEdit I don't print that often. However, I do preview a lot, so I changed the default Print option to Preview, as I am more likely want to preview a page than Print. This is very helpful when previewing | |
ScratchPad | Sometimes I just need to jot something quick down. | |
Live Search | Quickly find something on the page. Note the search matches are highlighted on the right of the window, making it easy to scroll to find similar matches. Simply type the shortcut and then search. | |
Backup File | I created an AppleScript which basically sends the the contents of the current window to Evernote. This is a super quick way to back up files. No more backup files cluttering the desktop. | |
Zap Gremlins | Remove any unwanted characters that may cause problems. For example the curly brackets that Microsoft Word creates. The text is replaced with ASCII equivalent. | |
Show/Hide SideBar | BBEdit automatically opens the sidebar when you have more than one file open - such as working on a project. Sometimes the sidebar can be distracting. | |
Hide/Show Line Number | Usually I have line numbers on by default, but when I am writing Markdown, line numbers don't cut it. So this is useful when I don't want to see them. | |
Hide/Show Gutter | Sometimes having a gutter is useful, sometimes it's not. Usually I combine the Gutter/Line numbers actions. That's why I have the shortcuts setup with one off numbers. | |
Process Lines Containing | Great way to filter out a log file. I can extract the lines that I care about into another file. |