Getting to Know Your Chromebook
Ah, yes, it has come to a time where we need one of those “getting to know your [blank]” tutorials. In this post I’ll show you how to use the basic functions of your Chromebook that you might not have known. How to open the launch (as well as what you can find there), scrolling, right-clicking (it’s different than Macs), zooming, delete to the right, how to find help, and how to easily pull up a calculator.
Your launch has many helpful things on it, as students at Massabesic High School, you don’t have a lot (if any) of extensions there, but there are other things. You can access drive and gmail as well as any other google apps. To access the launch click the circle in the bottom left of the screen. If you don’t see what you’re looking for in your most recent, press “All Apps”.
While the launch is open, you can use it as a calculator also. For example, if you needed 7*8 you could type that into the “search” and it will tell you 56 without having to search it or trying to find your calculator.
The last thing I’ll talk about in launch is how to find Get Help. Help is exactly what it sounds like, you find help about your chromebook. Once you click Get Help (Shown in the launch screen above as green box with ?) you will see different FAQ type links on the left side.
If your question is in one of these, you can click it and find more specific help links.
If you don’t know where it would be, you can just search at the top. You don’t have to type “on Chromebook” like you would on Google. You can simply search something like “background” and it’ll direct you to answers about your Chromebook.
A few things that confuse people about the Chromebook are things that differ from Mac, as that’s what we had before. Right-clicking is the most commonly-asked-about thing on that list:
To right-click on the Chromebooks, you hold down alt instead of ctrl.
Other shortcuts on Chromebook are:
Zoom- To zoom in, just as you did with Mac, you hold ctrl while pressing the plus. Zoom out is the same but with the minus. To go back to the original size, hold ctrl and press 0.
Delete- You may have noticed that instead of delete, you have “backspace”, this works just like delete, but there’s a way to make it delete a whole word. Press ctrl and backspace, there you have it, whole word gone!
For a list of more key commands press ctrl alt /
This list will show you what pressing ctrl can do vs alt vs holding both down
A couple other notable things, before I close this blog post, are new ways to open a link, switch between tabs, move between pages, and see all open windows.
To open a link in a new tab, all you have to do is click it, but with three fingers. It’ll automatically open in a new tab!
To switch between tabs, just swipe with three fingers to the right or left! Moving between pages is just like that, but with two fingers.
Lastly, to see all open windows, swipe down with three fingers.
Thank you for reading! I will be adding more updates with things you might want to know about the Chromebook later in my posts. I’ve already done one on how to use the Graphical Analysis app that will help if you are in any science classes: http://rsu57techhelpdesk.wixsite.com/techdesk/single-post/2017/05/10/Graphical-Analysis-on-Chromebooks
If you have any questions just email us at techhelpdesk@rsu57.org
