Questions tagged [textedit]
The built in text editor with Mac OS X. It started on NEXTSTEP, and was then included as a replacement to SimpleText when Mac OS X shipped. The project is also open source.
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Can I open files in TextEdit from the Terminal in Mac OS X?
I frequently find that a Terminal command to open a file in TextEdit would be very handy. Does such a command exist on Mac OS X?
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How to make TextEdit open with a blank file by default?
In Lion, TextEdit used to open with a blank file by default. On Mountain Lion, it launches with a file picker by default — either for choosing to store the file in iCloud or for opening a local file.
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Quotes problem in Mavericks (or TextEdit)
TextEdit in Mavericks changes the standard double quotes "Hello" to using curly, non-ascii quotation marks “Hello”. It does this even when you edit plain text documents. Is there a way to prevent ...
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How to edit the /etc/hosts file with TextEdit?
When I open the file with TextEdit (I don't want (truly, I am not able) to use vim), it is seen as "locked", even if I modify the permissions of the file via the "Get Info" window.
How can I modify ...
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How to use find and replace to replace a character with new line
I have a document, I wants to use the find and replace to convert any period (.) into a new line. I can't seems to of that, in Microsoft word you can input ^ CTRL+p into the replace field. But how do ...
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How to permanently put TextEdit in the Open with... menu list?
I'm a developer and often dealing with unusual file types. If I want to open one of these files in TextEdit, I have to start it first and then open the file with it, or drag the file to the TextEdit ...
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What to use for a plain text editor on a plain macOS installation?
I'm writing instructions for a project and at some point, for a certain condition one needs to modify a simple plain ascii text file.
For windows I can tell them to fire up notepad. I thought on the ...
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How can one save a file as plain text in TextEdit? [duplicate]
I'm not seeing an option to choose plain text encoding (.TXT extension) when saving a file in TextEdit.app in macOS. My documents seem to all be rtf - rich text format.
How can I change this?
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Can TextEdit save as plain text?
When I try to save a new file in TextEdit, I always get a popup saying I can't save with ".txt" at the end of the file name.
I want to save a plaintext file, but TextEdit insists on saving as .rtf ...
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Save file to hidden directory with standard OS X save dialog
Using TextEdit, when I try to save example.txt to some hidden directory, for example ~/Library, I can't because save panel doesn't show them.
The only way I found was to save file to non-hidden ...
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How do I unlock a .plist file so that I can change it?
I want to edit Info.plist for TextEdit. (Here's why.) I'm running OS 10.7, and I do have Xcode installed. But every time I try to edit the file, it's locked and I can't save my changes.
If I try to ...
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How do I open a file as root in TextEdit on Lion?
How do I open a file as root, in TextEdit? I've tried these commands as root, but TextEdit always say it's locked:
open -e /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
open -e -F /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
open -e -F -W /...
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Change tabstop in TextEdit.app
How does one change the tabstop in TextEdit.app for Snow Leopard?
The current tabstop is 8 spaces. I would like to change this to 4 spaces.
Is there any way to achieve this?
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Where does OS X store unsaved TextEdit documents?
Where does Mac OS X store TextEdit's unsaved documents?
I want to programmatically:
increase/decrease that size
flush the cache
provide configuration option to control the frequency of auto saving/...
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How do I combine separate cells in a Numbers spreadsheet and paste the result as text into a TextEdit document?
I have a Numbers spreadsheet. Column B contains first names, column C contains surnames.
I need an easy way to combine and reformat this data so that it’s in the format Surname, Firstname. I then ...
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In TextEdit, if I type two `-` it is converted to one longer `-`
I use TextEdit to edit my text.
If I type in a double -, it is converted to one longer -.
How to avoid this?
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How to resize a photo in TextEdit? [closed]
When I add photos to TextEdit, they sometimes appear too big, and I want to make them smaller.
How can I resize or modify photos in TextEdit?
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Is there a way to refresh a file that is opened by TextEdit?
As an academic, I often have to conduct "numerical experiments" by running a small computer program that outputs to a text file.
I use TextEdit to read the text file.
However, when I re-run the ...
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How does Mountain Lion set the default text editor for the "open -t" terminal command?
OSX seem to offer open -t command line shortcut to open arbitrary files in the system default text editor.
Where is this default text editor set?
Can I change it from the command line (if possible) ...
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How to disable the most recently used items in App Exposé on Lion?
When using App Exposé on Lion ( Control-↓ by default), the lower part of the screen above the dock is reserved for minimized windows. A new feature of at least TextEdit in Lion is that it also ...
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TextEdit app always opens with File Open dialog
Every time I open my TextEdit app it starts with the File Open dialog open.
How do I stop this?
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TextEdit shows dialogs about not having permission to open any files
About once per day, TextEdit starts showing dialogs like this when I try to open any file:
The document “test.txt” could not be opened. You don’t have permission.
To view or change permissions,...
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Applications occasionally start showing "The document could not be autosaved" dialogs
Every now and then, some application (usually TextEdit) starts showing dialogs like this when I try to close or save any document:
The document “2.txt” could not be autosaved.
Your changes ...
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Stop TextEdit from using iCloud save
Every time I save a TextEdit file 'SAVE' always goes to iCloud, even though I have been saving to another folder. Can I stop 'SAVE' from doing this?
I run OS X 10.9.4
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How can I zoom in TextEdit?
I am given documents from various different sources in various different formats to work with. I use TextEdit to read and make small edits to them.
TextEdit can read and edit all of the formats I need ...
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How do you delete a column in TextEdit?
Using TextEdit, I created a table in a RTF document. Now I want to delete one of the columns in the table, and I see no option anywhere to delete a column. How do I delete a column in a table in ...
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Can a keyboard shortcut force TextEdit windows to close and discard all changes?
Is there any way I could configure TextEdit to close the window (through keyboard shortcut) without asking me if I want to save an unsaved file?
Can be another script/program configure globally when ...
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How do I disable autosave in TextEdit?
The old technique for disabling autosave and re-enabling traditional text editor behavior (i.e., NOTHING get saved unless one saves it EXPLICITLY) of
defaults write com.apple.TextEdit ...
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Why does the font change after I paste an image in TextEdit?
Here is a simple sequence of actions in TextEdit in macOS 10.13.6 that produces an unexpected side-effect. I don’t understand why, and would like to know how to prevent it.
Create a new document in ...
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Delete a TextEdit document in iCloud
I would like to delete a TextEdit document stored in iCould.
The only solution I found was to
open the document
move the document to the hard disk "File → Move To ..."
delete it locally
Any ...
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Is there a pre-installed GUI text editor that can edit html files without entering WYSIWYG mode?
I'm looking for something similar to windows notepad. textEdit exists, but opening a *.html file with it will instantly treat the code as rich text and add a bunch of other markup to the document the ...
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unable to indent / shift right multiple lines of text in textedit
New to mac and am not able to highlight and indent multiple lines of text using textedit.
I see many solutions that seem to only apply to older version of OSX / text edit.
Command + ] is ...
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How to know which directory contains the file that I'm editing in TextEdit?
Very basic question - I am editing a file using the basic system TextEdit app. As I actually have the file in question in several locations, how can I tell what directory the one that I am editing is ...
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Using TextEdit for HTML
Is there a way to open a HTML file in TextEdit without it rendering the file but just showing it as source (and possibly edit it)?
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Apple TextEdit - where is the file being saved?
I used to use Save As… to remember the directory I was saving a file in, but that seems to have disappeared with the latest OS.
I have a file open in TextEdit. How does one go about finding the ...
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No single shortcut to go to end of file
I'm new to Mac (10.15.5) and so far figuring out shortcuts has not been a smooth journey. Usually on Windows I would use these -
Home - Beginning of a line
End - End of line
Ctrl + Home - Beginning ...
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TextEdit key bindings modified in DefaultKeyBinding.dict stopped working
I have customized text editing bindings in ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict but they all stopped working in TextEdit.app when I upgraded to Lion. They still work fine in other Cocoa apps ...
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What happens when you paste an app into TextEdit?
In the past, I have pasted apps into TextEdit, which would show something like the following. I always thought that this was a convenient way to store app icons (as .icns files), in case I ever wanted ...
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Always enable Smart Quotes in TextEdit?
I like smart quotes and curly quotes (unlike most people of the internet, apparently). I'm on macOS Mojave, Version 10.14.3. I have both of these preferences turned on:
TextEdit preferences:
System-...
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TextEdit keeps getting stuck
TextEdit keeps getting stuck in the middle of files stopping me from being able to scroll down any further. I'm on macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 - I don't remember ever having these issues on Sierra 10.12....
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TextEdit Chinese Plain Text Style Problems
I'm working with Chinese text in TextEdit as a plain text .txt file.
This is what a normal line looks like: (and the style that my text document basically looks like)
𨃅𨃅 bai1 bai1 [pai⁵⁵ pai⁵...
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How to start TextEdit with a new document right away?
Normally when I click on TextEdit or use Spotlight to open it, I'll have to click on "New Document". However, I notice some Mac start TextEdit with a new document right away. How did people ...
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How does one start a bash command that doesn't close on Terminal quit?
I want to run a command, and not have it quit when Terminal closes.
For instance, if I run top & ; disown, top quits when I quit Terminal. I want to keep top alive.
I know this is possible since ...
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How can I associate OpenOffice documents with OpenOffice apps instead of TextEdit?
I just updated to Mountain Lion.
My documents were prepared in OpenOffice and contain many mathematical equations. After updating to Mountain Lion, the documents open in TextEdit instead of ...
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How can I get all my open TextEdit documents back?
I have a bad habit of having zillions of open documents in TextEdit, containing brief notes that I've made. Most of these are unsaved, so they have titles like "Untitled 67".
Usually this isn't a ...
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File with no extension will be opened by TextEdit by default. How do I change that?
File with no extension will be opened by TextEdit by default. For example, in terminal run open ~/.ssh/known_hosts will open TextEdit to edit known_hosts
These files are normally just text file so I ...
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Is it possible to have the "Find" field engaged on open of .rtf file?
When I click on the Dock shortcut of a specific .rtf file to open the file in TextEdit, my cursor is by default set in front of the first character of the first line of the document.
However, I would ...
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Default background color in Textedit
How do I set default background color in Textedit?
Preferences -> New Document -> Font doesnt help.
That black on white isn't too good in nights.
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Are there keyboard shortcuts to move paragraphs up or down while editing text?
Microsoft Word on Windows has this really handy feature where you can move the current paragraph up or down. I think you type alt+ctrl+up or alt+ctrl+down, though I don't have a Windows PC in front ...
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Text editing that leaves no traces
I'm looking for a foolproof way to edit a text file and be certain that the application or mac OS doesn't save a copy of the content, e.g. through some autosave function, or caching.
The reason being ...
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