- Introduction
- Understanding System Preferences
- Viewing System Preferences
- Locking and Unlocking Preference Settings
- Changing Appearance Options
- Setting Up the Desktop
- Setting Up Screen Savers
- Setting the Date and Time
- Changing Language Options
- Changing Text Substitution Options
- Saving Energy and Managing Power
- Selecting a Startup Disk
- Changing the Way a CD or DVD Starts
- Controlling Sound
- Dictating Your Speech
- Letting Mac Do the Talking
- Setting Accessibility Options
- Having VoiceOver Read from the Screen
- Setting VoiceOver Preferences
- Using VoiceOver Commands
- Setting Ink Preferences
Setting Up the Desktop
The desktop background, or wallpaper, is a picture that serves as your desktop’s backdrop, the basic surface on which icons and windows appear. You can select a background picture from the ones provided with OS X (which includes Nature, Abstract, Patterns, or Solid Colors, which allows you to create custom colors) or select one of your own in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane in System Preferences. You can select pictures in a variety of formats (such as JPEG, PICT, GIF, TIFF, PDF, or PSD) from your own Pictures folder, another folder you select, or even an iPhoto folder (Photo Library, Last Import, or iPhoto album), and then select options to display them on the screen. When you select a picture from a folder, you can display all the pictures at certain intervals in alphabetical or random order. In addition, you can turn on or off the translucent menu bar effect.
Select a Desktop Background
- Click the System Preferences icon in the Dock, and then click the Desktop & Screen Saver icon.
- Click the Desktop tab.
- Click an image category folder in the left column.
- Select a thumbnail.
If you want to use your own folder of pictures, click the Add (+) button, select the folder, and then click Choose.
- To remove one of your own added folders, select the folder, and then click the Remove (-) button.
- To show all the pictures in a folder, select the Change picture check box, select an interval from the pop-up, and then select the Random order check box or clear it for random order.
- Select the the Translucent menu bar check box to enable the menu effect or clear the check box disable it.
- Click the Close button.