TextEdit in Mac OS X Lion operates on the “select, then operate” principle, as do most Macintosh programs, including the Finder. So in Mac OS X Lion, before you can affect text in your document — change its font face, style, size, margins, and so on — you need to select the text you want to operate on.
You can use several methods to select text in a document:
- If you double-click a word, the word is selected.
- If you triple-click a word, the entire paragraph that contains the word is selected.
- You can click anywhere in the document, hold down the Shift key, and then click again somewhere else in the document, and everything between the two clicks will be selected.
- You can click anywhere in the document, hold down the Shift key, and use the keyboard arrow keys to extend the selection.
- Learn HTML Using Notepad or TextEdit. Web pages can be created and modified by using professional HTML editors. However, for learning HTML we recommend a simple text editor like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac). We believe in that using a simple text editor is a good way to learn HTML.
- 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. How to open, edit, and convert documents.
- New Mac users may not know about TextEdit, a simple but deep text editing and word processing tool that comes with your Mac. You can use TextEdit to create documents in cases when a full word processor like Pages or Microsoft Word isn't necessary. TextEdit has two modes: plain text and rich text. You can use the first for writing, notes and coding.
TextEdit is a word processor/text editor in Mac OS X Lion that you can use to write letters, scribble notes, or open Read Me files. It’s not as sophisticated as Microsoft Word (or Apple’s Pages, Quark Xpress, or Adobe InDesign, for that matter), but you can definitely use OS X Lion’s TextEdit.
Give all these methods of selecting text a try, decide which ones feel most comfortable and then memorize them for future use.
Rather than bore you with a rundown of what the buttons on TextEdit’s toolbar do, just hover the cursor over any item to display its tooltip.
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You can manipulate text when it is selected. For example, you can use the Format menu’s Font submenu to make text Bold, Italic, Outlined or Underlined.
Another way to apply the Bold style to the text is by clicking the B (for Bold) button on the toolbar. Note that the toolbar is only visible when working on a Rich Text document; if you were to choose Format→Make Plain Text (Command+Shift+T), the toolbar would disappear.
The same idea applies to tabs and margins. Notice that the selected text is now indented by half an inch.
Select some text in your document, and try all the items in the Format menu’s Font and Text submenus. As you see, you have a great deal of control over the way your words appear on the screen. And because TextEdit, like most Macintosh software, is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), when you print the document (by choosing File→Print), the printed version should look exactly like the version you see on the screen.
Apple Textedit App
Before you print your masterpiece, however, you might want to check your spelling and grammar — something that TextEdit makes extremely simple. Merely choose Edit→Spelling and Grammar→Check Document Now or press Command+; (semicolon). TextEdit highlights and underlines what it perceives to be mistakes in your document. Right-click (or Control-click) to correct the error.
Textedit Macbook
Don’t put too much faith in Lion’s spelling and grammar checker. It’s good but not perfect and no substitute for a good proofreading.