{"id":29534,"date":"2020-07-21T16:06:06","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T20:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=29534"},"modified":"2020-07-21T16:06:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T20:06:06","slug":"return-and-enter-are-two-different-keys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/21\/return-and-enter-are-two-different-keys\/","title":{"rendered":"Return and Enter Are Two Different Keys"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Gruber<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

If your keyboard doesn’t have a dedicated Enter key, you can type the Enter key by pressing Fn-Return. That’s why some Return keys have “Enter” printed in small type above the word “Return”. If your keyboard has neither a dedicated Enter key nor an Fn modifier key, I don’t think you can type Enter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Unfortunately, my experience is that fn-Return only works properly on Apple keyboards. On third-party ones, it just generates a Return<\/a>. Similarly, the fn key is often implemented as a modifier within the keyboard, so that fn-Down Arrow will send an actual Page Down but pressing fn by itself does nothing. With an Apple keyboard, you can see on-screen that the fn and arrow keys were pressed, and you can use fn by itself to trigger Mission Control, Siri, or Dictation.<\/p>\n\n

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As a general rule, when they differ, Return is simply the key for typing a newline character (which, on classic Mac OS, was literally a return character, but let’s not get into that here), whereas Enter enters<\/em> what you’ve already typed without adding a new line.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n