Which brings us to the last and possibly greatest point: As long as you own a Mac, TextEdit is completely free.TextEdit is the default text editor in macOS, and it’s just as barebones as the default text editor in Windows, Notepad. Of course, you could use Word instead, but it’s much slower and takes up a lot more memory, and it has more features than you might need.

You can also embed images in RTF documents, which you can’t do in Notepad. There are also spelling and grammar check options (under Edit > Spelling and Grammar). In addition to the text formatting options, TextEdit also includes other word processor-like features that Notepad lacks, such as bulleted lists, tables, headings, and line spacing. With rich text features, it’s easy to use TextEdit as a bare-bones word processor in place of apps like Pages or Microsoft Word. RELATED: What Is Plain Text? A Lightweight Word Processor When the document opens, choose Format > Make Plain Text in the menu bar, or press Shift+Command+T on your keyboard. To create a plain text document in TextEdit, select File > New. Of course, you can also edit plain text files (with no special fonts or formatting) in TextEdit as necessary. This means that TextEdit document can support different fonts, font styles (bold, italics), font colors, justification, and more. Unlike Notepad, TextEdit can read and write files in RTF, RTFD, HTML, and even Word format. One of the key features of TextEdit is its ability to write and edit files in Rich Text Format. It doesn’t have all the features of a full-fledged word processor like Microsoft Word, but it’s much lighter and faster. It doesn’t get in-your-face with pop-up load dialogs, welcome screens, or template selection windows. TextEdit is great because it’s feature-rich but still lean. And when Mac OS X emerged, TextEdit came along with it. In 1995, Edit.app got a rewrite for OpenStep (an intermediary between NeXTSTEP and OS X) as TextEdit. It originated as an app called Edit.app for the NeXTSTEP operating system in the 1980s, which later became the basis for Mac OS X. The Mac’s Main Text Editorīelieve it or not, TextEdit predates macOS itself.

If you’re switching to a Mac from Windows, you might be wondering: What is the equivalent of Notepad on a Mac? The answer is TextEdit, and it’s much better than Notepad.

Better notepad for mac