How to make the delete key on a Mac act like a PC

My primary computer is a Windows 8.1 Pro PC but I’ve had to pack it away in storage for a few weeks so I’ve been using a Macbook Air running Mac OS X Yosemite.  And this is the thing: I like Yosemite.  I know I’ve just committed anathema by some PC standards, but I don’t have any beef against Apple.

I think the operating system is snappy, the graphical user interface is attractive and apps made for Mac are just more enjoyable to use than their PC counterparts.  The Adobe suite of tools is a good example of this.

But there’s one little thing about my MacBook Air that is positively annoying: it has something to do with the keyboard.

So here’s the deal: despite my new love affair for my Mac I’m noticing a few things that are really perturbing.  My chief complaint today deals with the delete key.

The keyboard on my Macbook Air is understandably smaller than a full sized keyboard so it doesn’t have a numeric keypad or even a backspace key.  Instead, there’s a button labeled delete directly under the power button on the right side of the top case.  I actually like the design of the Macbook Air but the delete key is freggin’ lame.

Why?

Because when I press Delete it acts more like a Backspace key.  In other words, every time I mash the Delete button, it chops the character immediately to the left of my blinking cursor.  It backs the cursor up a sucks up my last character – but that’s exactly what the backspace button does!

I quickly discovered that on my Mac, the delete key behaves exactly like the backspace key on my PC.  The delete key on m Windows box deletes to the right.  So each time you press the delete key on a PC, the entire line is sucked into the cursor like a planet into a blackhole.   That’s cool and that’s what it should do right?

Well it doesn’t do that on my Mac.  So here’s a trick:

To make the delete button act like a PC just press and hold the fn key while hitting Delete.  Your Mac will wise up and start deleting text the right way!

I still make the same mistake of pressing delete and then backspacing and using the arrow keys to move the cursor to the right place.  It will take practice but with time you’ll adapt.

Ahh, getting used to this Mac thing is painful sometimes.