| TextEdit | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Screenshot of TextEdit 1.19 | |
| Developer | Apple |
| Initial release | July 1996; 29 years ago (1996-07) with the release ofOPENSTEP 4.0[1] |
| Stable release | 1.18  / 24 October 2022; 3 years ago (24 October 2022) |
| Operating system | Originally released forNeXTSTEP, released formacOS afterApple's purchase ofNeXT; Ported to allGNUstep systems (up to 1.6) |
| Type | Text editor,word processor |
| License | BSD-3-Clause |
| Website | developer |
TextEdit is anopen-sourceword processor andtext editor, first featured inNeXT'sNeXTSTEP andOPENSTEP. It is now distributed withmacOS sinceApple's acquisition of NeXT, and available as aGNUstep application for otherUnix-like operating systems such asLinux.[2] It is powered byApple Advanced Typography.
TextEdit replaced the text editor ofprevious Macintosh operating systems,SimpleText. TextEdit uses theCocoa text system to read and write documents inRich Text Format (RTF),Rich Text Format Directory,plain text, andHTML formats, and can open (but not save) old SimpleText files. It also has access to the operating system's built-inspell-checking service. The version included inMac OS X v10.3 added the ability to read and write documents in Word format, and the version inMac OS X v10.4 added the ability to read and writeWord XML documents. The version included inMac OS X v10.5 added read and write support forOffice Open XML andOpenDocument Text. The version included inMac OS X v10.6 added automatic spelling correction, support for data detectors, and text transformations. The version included inMac OS X v10.7 added versioning of files, and Autosave similar to iOS.
Formatted text, justification, and even the inclusion of graphics and other multimedia elements are supported by TextEdit, as well as the ability to read and write to differentcharacter encodings, includingUnicode (UTF-8 andUTF-16). TextEdit automatically adjusts letter spacing in addition to word spacing while justifying text. TextEdit does not support multiple columns of text.
The high-resolution TextEdit 1.5 icon found in Mac OS X versions starting with 10.5 (Leopard) features an extract from Apple's "Think different" ad campaign. This was replaced by a blank sheet of notebook paper in 10.10 (Yosemite).
Apple formerly distributed TextEdit'ssource code as part of the documentation of itsintegrated development environment (IDE)Xcode. On theInternet, the source code of TextEdit can be found in Apple'sMac Developer Library.[3] The following quote is from the characteristic part of theBSD-3-Clause-compliant license text included in the source code:
[...] In consideration of your agreement to abide by the following terms, and subject to these terms, Apple grants you a personal, non-exclusive license, under Apple's copyrights in this original Apple software (the "Apple Software"), to use, reproduce, modify and redistribute the Apple Software, with or without modifications, in source and/or binary forms; provided that if you redistribute the Apple Software in its entirety and without modifications, you must retain this notice and the following text and disclaimers in all such redistributions of the Apple Software. Neither the name, trademarks, service marks or logos of Apple Computer, Inc. may be used to endorse or promote products derived from the Apple Software without specific prior written permission from Apple. Except as expressly stated in this notice, no other rights or licenses, express or implied, are granted by Apple herein, including but not limited to any patent rights that may be infringed by your derivative works or by other works in which the Apple Software may be incorporated.[...]
