OS X Mountain Lion Portable Genius

Working with Documents in TextEdit

TextEdit is the Mountain Lion built-in word-processing application and it can handle a good deal of your basic document-writing needs. TextEdit is one of those names that advertise just what the application does: it edits text. The TextEdit interface is simplicity itself, as are the functions it provides. Although you don’t get all the frills of a full-fledged word processor, like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or OpenOffice, TextEdit is surprisingly more capable than it appears at first glance (it can even open documents created by the aforementioned big boys).

Setting TextEdit Preferences

I am a big fan of making things work the way you want them to on your computer, rather than the way Apple (or anyone else) says you should. The way I work may do wonders for my production but cause you to groan with frustration or yawn in tedium. Most applications allow you to change the default behaviors to match your style of working (or playing, as the case may be), and TextEdit is no exception.

To alter the TextEdit default behaviors, choose TextEdit→Preferences from the menu or press +,. The Preferences window opens and permits access to two tabs: New Document and Open and Save. The New Document preferences are shown in Figure 5.12.

5.12 The TextEdit New Document ...