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TextEdit (v1.7)
#18522 10/18/11 08:22 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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I can't find where this application was discussed, so/but it's probably worth starting a new thread.

Someone [again, pardon the memory lapse] suggested using TextEdit in place of Word which requires "special pasting" of HTML text (eg, from online newspaper articles) in order to remove HTML tags and just get unformatted text.

A couple observations after having tried doing same and after having set Preferences (or so I thought):

TE doesn't provide pages with justified margins as does Word.

TE doesn't always eliminate HTML tags, so hotlinks seem to sneak through.

Cut text pasted into a new TE document overrides the Preferences set for a new document (eg, Preferences set for Verdana 12, but the article's Times 12 comes through).

Observations?

At this point the number of steps in getting an HTML text into a Desktop document is about the same for a Word document and a TextEdit document. Given the end result, the nod goes to Word ... unless I can radically reduced the number of steps it takes to produce a TE document.

Suggestions?

Re: TextEdit (v1.7)
grelber #18543 10/18/11 04:20 PM
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Switch to OPEN OFFICE perhaps?

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/

I find it very User Friendly and suits my word processing needs - even to saving documents in PDF format, if desired. It is a free application.

Re: TextEdit (v1.7)
grelber #18561 10/18/11 11:04 PM
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I don't understand why can't you just use "paste special" command in Word and choose "unformatted text"? It does not work or you want to go straight?

Last edited by macnerd10; 10/18/11 11:05 PM.

Alex
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Re: TextEdit (v1.7)
grelber #18564 10/18/11 11:58 PM
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TextEdit will paste text without formatting or links if you first go to the Format menu and choose the Make Plain Text command.

This will lose all formatting, including alignment and justification. It sounds like you don't want to do this; it sounds like you want to preserve SOME formatting (like justification) and get rid of some other formatting (like links).

Word can do this if you hit Paste, then click on the weird little symbol you see at the end of the text you paste and choose "Match Destination Formatting" or "Keep Text Only". (The little symbol--it looks a bit like a crude drawing of a clipboard--is actually a popup menu. It disappears as soon as you start to type again.)


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Re: TextEdit (v1.7)
grelber #18568 10/19/11 12:43 AM
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I may have brought up TextEdit in the context of using Plain Clip to strip formatting from clipboard text. In and by itself TextEdit wouldn't strip formatting from pasted text (unless you tell it to like tacit explained), and that may be what you're seeing.

As to font selection using Plain Clip, that seems to follow the destination document's settings; if nothing's set there (I haven't tried the default), the source may determine the font. And unless that changed in Lion, TE does provide justification controls similar to Word, so don't I understand your comment about that.


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Re: TextEdit (v1.7)
alternaut #18569 10/19/11 12:57 AM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
I may have brought up TextEdit in the context of using Plain Clip to strip formatting from clipboard text.

Aw shucks, let me share some guilt as well... from Networking/Firefox: 1 and 2



Originally Posted By: tacit
TextEdit will paste text without formatting or links if you first go to the Format menu and choose the Make Plain Text command.

...And, if we find ourselves using TextEdit for plain-text most of the time, we can toggle that behavior in the prefs... so that plain-text becomes the default for new docs (thereby requiring ⌘⇧T to switch to rich-text format).

Re: TextEdit (v1.7)
tacit #18587 10/19/11 10:53 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: tacit
Word can do this if you hit Paste, then click on the weird little symbol you see at the end of the text you paste and choose "Match Destination Formatting" or "Keep Text Only". (The little symbol--it looks a bit like a crude drawing of a clipboard--is actually a popup menu. It disappears as soon as you start to type again.)

Just before I saw your comment, I had been trolling through Word Help on just the subject of special pasting and ran across discussion regarding the operation of the Paste Options button (which always popped up under that operation but which I hadn't paid any attention to since it disappeared as soon as any other operation was initiated).

That little button does exactly what I want (ie, matching cut text to destination formatting, namely my default preferences) and it does it slicker than .... I was going to report on same here, when I came across your suggestion.

That pretty much seals it. Word now wins hands down (at least for cutting and pasting HTML and other differently formatted texts).


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