How to Use Plain Text Mode in TextEdit

By default, the text editor app on macOS Use Plain Text Mode in TextEdit. This means that when you copy and paste text, the formatting stays the same. TextEdit is a free word processor that has been part of Macintosh operating systems for a long time. It was originally made for the NeXTSTEP operating system and came to Apple when the company bought NeXT and its software, which would soon become the basis for OS X.

TextEdit has grown into a powerful program that can handle most simple word processing tasks with ease, despite its simple interface. TextEdit can do all of these things because it has good support for rich text formatting, which lets users change fonts, sizes, colors, and more. This is basically what most people think of when they think of more advanced word processing programs like Apple Pages and Microsoft Word.

But sometimes it’s best to use TextEdit’s Plain Text Mode, which gets rid of all formatting and, you guessed it, makes only plain text. This can help you get rid of the formatting from text you copied, work with code, or make documents simpler and smaller if they don’t need the benefits of rich text formatting.

Make Plain Text the default format in TextEdit

To change the default file format to .txt, simply launch TextEdit, then click on TextEdit in the Menu bar, then click on Settings…

Make sure you are in the New Document tab, then select Plain text under the Format header. Close the Preferences window, and from now on, any new document you create in TextEdit will automatically be in plain text and will be saved as a .txt file.

Convert Text To Plain Text Mode

1. You can easily convert any TextEdit rich text document to plain text mode at any time. To do so, open your rich text document in TextEdit and go to Format > Make Plain Text. You can also press “Shift+Command+T”.
2. A confirmation dialog box displays. Converting your document to plain text removes all formatting, images, attachments, and document properties. So, be sure you want to convert your document to text.
3. The formatting toolbar and ruler are removed from the TextEdit window. All the formatting is removed and the text is converted to the Menlo font, size 11. In plain text mode, you can still change the font and size using the Format menu.
4.  You can convert a plain text document to a rich text document by going to Format > Make Rich Text while the document is open. However, if the document was originally a rich text document, you will not get back the original formatting. 

Save Files In Plain Text

• Open TextEdit, if it’s not open already, and go to TextEdit > Preferences. You can also press “Command+,” (comma).
• On the Preferences dialog box, click the Open and Save tab.
•  First, check the Add “.txt” extension to plain text files box. Then, select Unicode (UTF-8) from the Saving files drop-down list in the Plain Text File Encoding section.
• Click the X button in the upper-left corner of the Preferences dialog box to close it.
•  Now, you can save your document as a plain text (.txt) file. Back in TextEdit, create a new document, convert it to plain text mode, and type some text. Then, go to File > Save, or press “Command+S”.
• Your file is saved in plain text format (.txt). However, the next time you create a new document in TextEdit, it will be a rich text document by default. You can convert it to plain text mode. 

FAQ

How do I set TextEdit as plain text or HTML editor?

1. In the TextEdit app on your Mac, choose File > New, then choose Format > Make Plain Text.
2. Enter the HTML code.
3. Choose File > Save, type a name followed by the extension . html (for example, enter index. html), then click Save.
4. When prompted about the extension to use, click “Use . html.”

How do you insert plain text on a Mac?

If you’d rather directly paste the copied text elsewhere as purely plain text, use the key combination Command-Option-Shift-V and it will be automatically stripped of any formatting. This is a system-wide shortcut, so you can use it almost anywhere in macOS that accepts text input.

How do I convert HTML Format to plain text?

1. Click the File tab again, then click the Save as option.
2. In the Save as type drop-down list, select the Plain Text (*. txt) option.
3. Click the Save button to save as a text document.

Which is better Notepad or TextEdit?

Notepad++ is ideal for industries like All Industries. For All Industries, TextEdit is a better choice. If you are confused between Notepad++ or TextEdit, you can also check if the software has customizable modules for your industry.