TextEdit won't highlight

[unblocktheplanet]

I love TextEdit. It's simple & rich, far less complicated than Word. Of course, it has its problems, too. I've lost way too many unsaved, untitled docs.

I recently had to install a new SSD & did a fresh install of High Sierra. No real reason to go back from Mojave but I remember liking HS better.

Now I'm having trouble highlighting words in TextEdit for copy & paste, change of font or style. Sometimes it will & sometimes it won't! Weird, eh?

I can highlight in all other applications & browsers. Anybody have a fix for this??? TIA!

 

[krs]

I love TextEdit. It's simple & rich, far less complicated than Word. Of course, it has its problems, too. I've lost way too many unsaved, untitled docs.

I use TextEdit a lot as well.
Wondering how you "loose" TextEdit docs without specifically deleting them.
Are you saying the document is sitting on your desktop (not yet saved) and then just disappears

I recently had to install a new SSD & did a fresh install of High Sierra. No real reason to go back from Mojave but I remember liking HS better.

Now I'm having trouble highlighting words in TextEdit for copy & paste, change of font or style. Sometimes it will & sometimes it won't! Weird, eh?

I can highlight in all other applications & browsers. Anybody have a fix for this??? TIA!

What kind of Mac are you using?
Are you using a mouse or track pad to highlight?
You say it's intermittent,when highlighting works I assume you can then copy and post etc.
Try to figure out if the problem is the application or the device you're using to do the highlighting.

 

[pm-r]

Try to figure out if the problem is the application or the device you're using to do the highlighting.

Also, they might want to try booting up into and using Safe Boot Mode and see if the problem disappears or improves...



- Patrick
=======

 

[unblocktheplanet]

[Composed in TextEdit!]

2015 15” MBP, MacOS 10.13.6, trackpad

Thanks, Patrick.

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear. As you know, TextEdit (and maybe nor Word) does not prompt to save docs except when closing them.

I tend to write multiple unsaved, untitled TE docs until they’re ‘seasoned’ and ready for use. No, they don’t just disappear. Often I Force Quit TE to preserve them. But if somebody else (like a repair shop) accesses my Mac, those docs are often gone.

This time was an SSD failure. The unsaved docs were gone.

I’ve now run OnyX & restarted. Hoping this problem disappears. If not, I’ll try the Safe Boot method.

If that fixes the problem, I’ll have to figure out the glitch, probably right back here!

CJ

 

[unblocktheplanet]

It also occurs to me there could be a problem with the trackpad itself.

 

[IWT]

I tend to write multiple unsaved, untitled TE docs until they’re ‘seasoned’ and ready for use.

If you had Time Machine running in the background, these "unsaved" TE documents would be recoverable from wherever you leave them - Desktop perhaps.

It would simply be a matter of entering TM from the icon in the top Menu Bar, scrolling back in time using the time scale on the right & restoring them.

I don't recall from your previous posts whether you have TM? It's an app that is built into all Macs and only requires an External Hard Drive (EHD) - preferably 1.5 to 2 times the storage capacity of your Mac.

Ian

 

[unblocktheplanet]

Thanks, Ian. I'd sure be smart to do that!

I didn't realise TM created a saved-state Desktop even with unsaved item.

I have to admit my own stupidity. I'm awfully lazty at backup. Always waiting for the perfect moment.

Wish TM had a feature to keep reminding me until I complied!

 

[IWT]

Wish TM had a feature to keep reminding me until I complied!

Well, it does!

If you set up TM to backup Automatically, it creates local snapshots, hourly BUs for 24 hours, daily for a month and weekly thereafter. All in the background and without input from you

You can even have 2 TMs running alternative in case one of the EHDs fails.

I didn't realise TM created a saved-state Desktop even with unsaved item.

Yes, it does. The BU includes all data, settings and suchlike wherever they are on the Mac irrespective of whether they are saved or in progress.

Ian

 

[IWT]

@unblocktheplanet

Further to the above: I prepare a lot of PowerPoint presentations and write a few scientific papers.

Just for your interest, this is my practice:

Let's say I'm doing a PPT presentation. I open the app, give the ppt a title, say, How to Save the Planet

So I title it - How to Save the Planet V1. This is version 1 because, like you, I'll come back to it many times. I then Save it. As I work on the ppt, every so often I use Command plus S which is the universal command to Save. Thus, as I work through the morning, I use Command + S intermittently thereby ensuring that my latest input is up to date.

Then I finish for the day, say. Next day, I open that ppt and immediately replace V1 with V2 and SAVE it. That now means that I have yesterday's version saved and I am now working on the second version; which I keep saving as I go along - Cmd + S.

You must know that working on any project means adding, deleting, modifying... The great thing is that you have saved several daily versions of the ppt in this case - which allows you to delete something from V3 and copy back something from V1 etc.

When you have finally done with the ppt or whatever, you can then delete all the earlier versions - or not as you desire.

And all of these will have been saved in TM, hour by hour and can be recovered if you accidentally delete a version or the Mac crashes etc.

Just a few thoughts

Ian

 

[unblocktheplanet]

Thanks for this, Ian. I realise this is just an excuse but my TM disk is simply not plugged in all the time because I use a laptop.

What would be interesting to me would be a pop-up or so which reminded me, again & again, to back up. Have not seen one.

These are just personal projects so backing up every week or so would suffice.

I could try & save every half-baked TextEdit doc but these would soon fill my Desktop! No need to save versions as all are RTFD, whole books, in fact!


CJ

 

[ferrarr]

I don't think Time Machine can backup a file that has not been saved. Also, I don't see anywhere where it states TM has the ability to save an open app state? I'm not even sure a cloning app can save an open app.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The problem is your workflow, not the app. When you open TextEdit and a new document, without saving it you aren't guaranteed that it's going to be around the next time you open the app. So rather than "seasoning" the file before saving. Open a new document, save it and then continue to edit so that it will exist in some known location. You can always delete the file if it isn't needed.

Not saving the file means that the untitled document has been created in a temporary location and in turn the document is meant to be temporary..

 

[IWT]

I don't think Time Machine can backup a file that has not been saved. Also, I don't see anywhere where it states TM has the ability to save an open app state? I'm not even sure a cloning app can save an open app.

You may be right, Bob.

Only once in my life, when I was searching for a text document, did I come across another that I hadn't saved as it was a temporary thing. But that was years ago and I may be misremembering the exact facts (as Hilary C once said).

So for the OP's situation - best Save! As indeed I recommended in my subsequent posts.

Thanks for that.

Ian

 

[unblocktheplanet]

The problem is your workflow, not the app. When you open TextEdit and a new document, without saving it you aren't guaranteed that it's going to be around the next time you open the app.

You are right about that. My workaround has been to Force-Quit TextEdit. When next opening TE, all the untitled, unsaved docs are still there where you left them. Clumsy but...

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Clumsy is one word for it. You really should start saving files if you expect them to stick around.

The other tactic that I've used in the past is to have a file called "notes" that is there. I start putting stuff into it and if it grows enough to be worthy of its own document, I move it and save it. That way I know all of my thoughts are minimally captured in the generic notes file.

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks for this, Ian. I realise this is just an excuse but my TM disk is simply not plugged in all the time because I use a laptop.

What would be interesting to me would be a pop-up or so which reminded me, again & again, to back up. Have not seen one.

These are just personal projects so backing up every week or so would suffice.

I could try & save every half-baked TextEdit doc but these would soon fill my Desktop! No need to save versions as all are RTFD, whole books, in fact!


CJ

If you turn on TM, as already stated, TM will make a snapshot backup every hour, whether the Mac is plugged to the backup drive or not. If it cannot find the backup drive, it will save the snapshot on the boot drive until the backup drive appears, and then it will make the backup and delete the snapshot on the boot drive. The only downside to this approach is that you need to have sufficient free space on the boot drive for the snapshot(s) to be stored. But they don't take as much space as the original files because the snapshot is compressed.

 

[krs]

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear. As you know, TextEdit (and maybe nor Word) does not prompt to save docs except when closing them.

MS Word has an "Auto Recover" feature, I wonder if Text Edit does as well.

 

[krs]

Well, it does!

If you set up TM to backup Automatically, it creates local snapshots, hourly BUs for 24 hours............

Just for clarification since I don't use TM.

If TM takes a snapshot only every hour, would that not mean a TextEdit document created at time "0" and then the app being "Force Quit" at say time 0+30 minutes would not be captured by TM?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Just for clarification since I don't use TM.

If TM takes a snapshot only every hour, would that not mean a TextEdit document created at time "0" and then the app being "Force Quit" at say time 0+30 minutes would not be captured by TM?

Correct.

Time Machine is not meant as a backup of transient files. The file is expected to remain for a little while to ensure that it is backed up.

 

[krs]

If you turn on TM, as already stated, TM will make a snapshot backup every hour, whether the Mac is plugged to the backup drive or not. If it cannot find the backup drive, it will save the snapshot on the boot drive until the backup drive appears, and then it will make the backup and delete the snapshot on the boot drive. The only downside to this approach is that you need to have sufficient free space on the boot drive for the snapshot(s) to be stored. But they don't take as much space as the original files because the snapshot is compressed.

My understanding is that one can also connect the hard drive for the TM backups to the USB port on the router which would be very useful when using Mac portables