[This article was first published in the February, 2009, issue of
Larry's Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe.]

I read somewhere that Final Cut Pro has 650 menus. Sheesh! No wonder we sometimes get lost trying to find the menu to do something.

Final Cut 6 also has 392 keyboard shortcuts. (I know -- I just counted them! I'll show you how to do the same a little later in this tutorial.) However, even with almost 400 shortcuts to choose from, sometimes, we just don't have the ones we need.

Wouldn't it be great if we could customize our own keyboard shortcuts?

Ta-DAH! We can. Even better, this process is the same for Final Cut Pro 4, HD, 5, and 6; though the default keyboard shortcuts differ between versions.

First, start Final Cut, though you don't necessarily need to open any projects.

Select Tools > Keyboard > Customize...

The keyboard illustration depends upon what keyboard you have connected to your Mac. In this case, this shows a full-size keyboard. If you have a laptop, the keyboard will look like your laptop keyboard.

A very useful window layout, to me, is the Two-Up layout (Windows > Arrange > Two-up). It makes the Browser and Timeline smaller so that the Canvas and Viewer can be bigger. The problem is that it doesn't have a keyboard shortcut.

Hmmmm.... If the default window layout is Control+U, seems to me it would be really useful if this Two-up layout were Shift+Control+U. Here are the steps to create this shortcut.

To prevent accidental changes to your keyboard shortcuts, the keyboard is locked. This is not for security, but simply to prevent accidental changes.

Unlock the keyboard by clicking the lock icon in the lower left corner.

Next, in the search box on the right, type a portion of the menu you want to turn into a shortcut. You need to type the text exactly as it appears in the menu, but you don't need to type the entire phrase. For instance, here I've just typed Two and it found the window menu I was looking for.

Note: You can also type a keyboard shortcut and it will find the menu that the shortcut is assigned to. I use this a lot to figure out what various key combinations do.

Across the top of the keyboard image are a series of tabs. These correspond to the various combinations of modifier keys that can be held while typing a shortcut. (It is interesting to me that these tabs don't allow any three key shortcuts -- probably because they had more than enough keys using the ten tab combinations that they have. Ten? Yes. Nine that use modifier keys and one that doesn't.)

Since we want to make Shift+Control+U our new keyboard shortcut to switch to the Two-up window layout, click the Control+Shift tab.

Then, from the search results box, where Two-up is displayed, drag the ICON on top of the letter U.

When you let go, you have a new keyboard shortcut.

Notice that at the right side of the search results window, the new shortcut is listed next to the menu item.

Hmmm... remember at the beginning of this technique I mentioned that there are 392 default shortcuts in Final Cut 6? Well, here's how to get a complete list of them.

With the keyboard still displayed, go to Tools > Keyboard Layout.

If you want to export a list that is read best in Excel -- a tab-delimited table -- select Save Grid as Text. If you want a list that is more easily read in Word, select Save All Commands as Text. The other two choices allows you to group your shortcuts prior to export.

Larry Jordan is a post-production consultant and an Apple-Certified Trainer in Digital Media with over 25 years experience as producer, director and editor with network, local and corporate credits. Based in Los Angeles, he's a member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America.

The information in this article is believed to be accurate at the time of publication. However, the author assumes no liability in case things go wrong. Please use your best judgment in applying these suggestions.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. This newsletter has not been reviewed or sanctioned by Apple or any other third party. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned here for editorial purposes only.

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