TextEdit 1.1.0 on Yosemite, 10.2.2

How can I persuade TexTedit to remember the view settings I want, namely Wrap to Page and a certain zoom level, please?

I can of course set these successfully in any one session; but on relaunching TextEdit, it reverts to its defaults.

TIA!

iirc you can change the settings used for new documents by going to preferences in textedit, and changing them in the New Document tab?

Thanks, Virtual1; you'd have thought so, wouldn't you?

It doesn't seem to work.

What I particularly want to change is the zoom level… eyesight poor :-)

Changes for existing docs always get removed.

Odd!

Have you tried tweaking a Zoom setting in System Preferences > Accessibility (or Universal Access, if you have an earlier OS)?

Jon,

Yes, thanks. Works great. But it's the text size - specifically in TextEdit - that I want to set and stick.

Also making changes to existing documents without wrap-to-page display that way.

BTW I see you applied the 10.10.3 update yesterday.

Mine is a clean machine (also 5K iMac) with 10.10.2; so any probs in the update, please: I want to keep my machine 'whole and healthy' :-)

TIA!

I've looked into that before, there is no standard way to change text size on a per-app basis, unless that app happens to have specific support for it. (VERY few do)

You'll need to do it globally.

No problems so far.

I just tried this and the default text size and typeface for native OS X applications such as TextEdit can be set using the freeware utility TinkerTool. Note that will change the typeface and size for ALL OS X native applications and setting the type size too big can cause text overflow problems with some applications and circumstances. Applications that have their own typeface and font size settings will override the universal setting.

As far as changing the view options for TextEdit I think you are out of luck. I even tried creating an Automator workflow and an Apple Script to do that and AFICT the view setting in TextEdit is not scriptable. I don't pretend to be an AppleScript expert so someone else may come up with the answer. I suspect the initial View settings are hard-coded in TextEdit.

Encouraging; thanks Jon!

Vitrual1 and joemikeb

Thanks; I fear you're both right.

I'll live with it :-)

Your help much appreciated…

99% of what tinker tool does is not via applescript, but is via DEFAULTS. (modifying preference files)

the trick though is figuring out what file to modify, and what key/value to use. The bugger is that SOME settings are not even present in the file, and are assuming "default" value. Like showing hidden files in Finder. The AppleShowAllFiles key is NOT present in the file normally. To show hidden files, you have to set the key to TRUE. Setting it to false (or removing it completely) disables it.

So it's difficult to know what "undocumented" keys are available, because you can't just look at the prefs file to see what options you have to work with. Sometimes people will scour files for text strings that look promising, in an attempt to uncover undocumented features. Things like turning on the debug menu in disk utility.

> … SOME settings are not even present in the file…

The impression I get from the way I cannot preserve changes over a reload of one particular document (and I've been a TextEdit user for decades) is that each file contains its own unalterable prefs.

If you change a style in a document that style change is retained in the document itself but it is alterable by modifying the style settings in that document. Personally I find using and modifying styles in TextEdit a bit awkward and obtuse compared to most full blown word processing applications.

Changing the system fonts in TinkerTool changes the Default style in a NEW document.

Thanks, Joe. Yes. It's the zoom level and wrap to page that I have changed in a document many times; but on saving/closing and reloading, these two settings always revert to some sort of default.

That's what makes me think they must be saved in each document but can't easily be changed.