TextEdit

Got a Mac for Xmas 2003 -- OSX Panther. The TextEdit word processor is really neat. Here's why: 1. Plain text editing. In File > preferences, you can turn off the default RTF Rich Text Format setting, so that it starts up as a plain text deditor -- which is perfect for making web pages, and then checking your changes in a Safari window.

2. Styles. On a new document, you can always switch the format to RTF, and then make paragraph styles that allow precise control over line spacing, font size and color, etc. The styles you make are saved with the document in the folder you made it in. If you send it to snother user, the RTF file appears correctly but the styles you made are no longer listed in the Styles box. For repeatable documents, you can make a template document with all the styles and then save it under a new name to start a new one.

3. Font display. TextEdit font appearance on the LCD screen is much, much better than with Appleworks 6 (don't know why yet).

Will add more TextEdit notes as they develop... JMD