TextEdit User Guide
How to create, save and print a document on a MacAn example chapter from the 'Okay, I Bought a MacBook Pro! Instructional DVD.www.computershy.com. Navigate to your Applications folder and launch TextEdit. Press Command+O to display the Open dialog. Navigate to the desired text file and double-click the filename to load it. You can also open an existing text file by dragging its icon from the Finder window to the TextEdit icon.
TextEdit can open documents in Microsoft Word, OpenDocument, Web Archive, HTML, rich text, and plain text formats. You can also change the formatting of HTML and RTF files when you open them.
Open a document
In the TextEdit app on your Mac, choose File > Open.
Select the document, then click Open.
If your document is stored in iCloud Drive, you can select TextEdit in the iCloud section of the sidebar, then double-click your document. See Use iCloud Drive to store documents.
To see the default formatting of an HTML or RTF file, choose TextEdit > Preferences, then click Open and Save. For information about viewing RTF formatting, see View the RTF directives in RTF files.
When you use Dark Mode, you can display documents in TextEdit with a light or dark background. In TextEdit, choose View > Use Dark Background for Windows (a checkmark indicates the dark background is being used); to turn it off, choose the command again (the checkmark is removed). When you view documents in TextEdit using the dark background, some text and background colors may be displayed differently on the screen to ensure the contents of the document are legible.
Change the document format
You can change the format of your document. Plain text (.txt) doesn’t allow formatting. Rich text (.rtf) allows formatting, tables, and images. When you change a rich text document to plain text, the document loses all text styles and formatting options.
In the TextEdit app on your Mac, choose Format > Make Plain Text or Format > Make Rich Text.
If there’s a format you prefer for new documents, you can set the default format. Choose TextEdit > Preferences, click New Document, then select “Rich text” or “Plain text” below Format.
Convert rich text documents to other formats
With TextEdit, you can open and edit rich text documents created in other word processing apps, including Microsoft Word and OpenOffice. You can also save your documents in a different format, so they’re compatible with other apps.
Create and edit HTML documents
You don’t need a special app to write or edit HTML code—just use TextEdit. You can display HTML documents like you’d see them in a browser, or use TextEdit as a code editor.
Mark up images
You can write or draw on images in your text files using the tools in the Markup toolbar.
Textedit On Macbook Air
To explore the TextEdit User Guide, click Table of Contents at the top of the page, or enter a word or phrase in the search field.