Mac OS X comes with a word processing application, called TextEdit, you can use to create basic documents. TextEdit is designed especially for working with text, so it’s a snap to create and edit letters, or any other word-based communication. TextEdit contains all the tools and features you need to produce interesting documents that say exactly what you mean, and have the look to match.

TextEdit is a versatile word-processing application. You can use TextEdit to view, create, and edit documents containing multi-lingual text, graphics, movies, and other document files. If you are working with HTML code (document as they appear in a Web browser), TextEdit makes the perfect editor. If you have speakers connected to your Macintosh, you can hear documents read aloud by your computer. When you’re done working with a document, you can save it in multiple formats, such as plain text, Rich Text Format (RTF), Microsoft Word, and Portable Document File (PDF).

Tools, such as the Spelling Checker and Dictionary, help you present your thoughts accurately, clearly, and effectively. When your text is complete, you can quickly add formatting elements, such as bold type and special fonts, to make your documents look professional. Each document contains simple styles that have common design elements. Apply the existing styles for headings, titles, body text, and so forth. Then modify the styles, or create your own to better suit your needs. Make sure you get the look you want by adding emphasis using italics, boldface, and underline, changing text alignment, adjusting line and paragraph spacing, setting tabs and indents, creating bulleted or numbered lists, and adding tables. When you’re done, your document is sure to demand attention and convey your message in its appearance.

A document is a file you create using a word processing program, such as a letter, memo, or resume. When you start TextEdit, a blank document appears in the work area, known as the document window. You can type information to create a new document and save the result in a file, or you can open an existing file (using the Sidebar and List or Column view) in various formats, and save the document with changes. You can also add pictures, movies, and files in your documents.

One of the advantages of using a word processing program is that you can edit a document or change the contents without re-creating it. In the TextEdit work area, the mouse pointer changes to the I-beam pointer, which you can use to reposition the insertion point (called navigating) and insert, delete, or select text. Before you can edit text, you need to highlight, or select, the text you want to modify. Then you can delete, replace, move (cut), or copy text within one document or between documents even if they’re different programs. When you cut or copy an item, it’s placed on the Clipboard, which stores only a single piece of information at a time. You can also move or copy selected text without storing it on the Clipboard by using drag-and-drop editing.

Although typing information into an document or e-mail through the keyboard is fast and efficient, you may find that you need to enter information in handwritten form, known as ink. Programs that accept ink, such as TextEdit or Mail, provide handwriting recognition to help you convert handwriting into text. Before you can insert handwritten text into a document, you need to have an ink device, or a handwriting tablet, such as Wacom, attached to and installed on your computer. With handwriting recognition turned on in the Ink pane in System Preferences, you can write in two ink modes: Anywhere or Ink pad. Anywhere mode is useful for writing in a word processing document. As you write in Anywhere mode, your ink strokes appear in a yellow lined translucent overlay. As the Mac recognizes the writing, it converts the ink to text, inserts it in the open document, and erases it from the overlay. When you need to use the mouse, you need to turn off Anywhere mode. Ink pad provides a floating window in which you can use the stylus to write ink and to perform commands as the mouse. Using ink can be tricky at first, but over time you’ll get the hang of it.

Everyone makes mistakes and changes their mind at some point, especially when creating or revising a document. With TextEdit you can instantly correct typing errors by pressing a key. You can also reverse more complicated actions, such as typing an entire word, formatting a paragraph, or creating a chart. If you need to undo several actions, you can use the Undo command multiple times. With the Undo command, if you change your mind, you can just as easily use the Redo command to restore the action you reversed.

Text substitution (New!) allows you to correct words and phrases that you misspell or insert symbols. For example, you can type “teh” to change to “the” or type (c) to insert ©. You can add words, phrases, and symbols to the Symbol and Text Substitution list in Language & Text preferences. In TextEdit, you can use Smart Copy/Paste to adjust text formatting during a copy and paste, Smart Dashes to automatically replace a sequence of dashes to typographical dashes, Smart Quotes to replace quotes and apostrophes to typographical ones, and Smart Links to convert URLs into links. TextEdit also uses data detectors (New!) to analyze what you type to detect specialized text, such as dates and addresses, so you can take smart actions, such as create a contact, create an iCal event, or map an address depending on the type of information.

As you type, a red wavy line appears under words not listed in TextEdit’s dictionary (such as misspellings or names) or duplicated words (such as the the). You can correct these errors as well as grammatical problems as they arise or after you finish the entire document. For common spelling errors, such as “teh,” TextEdit can automatically correct the mistake (New!) as you type. TextEdit uses symbol and text substitution options in Language & Text preferences (New!) to make the correction. Before you print your final document, use the Spell and Grammar Checker to ensure that your document is error-free.

The Dictionary application, located in the Applications folder, gives you the ability to search for words and definitions as a stand-alone program or from any application, such as TextEdit. Within an application, you can view words in a Dictionary panel or open the Dictionary application. You can also use the Dictionary widget in Dashboard to look up and find the definitions you need. Dictionary provides several different sources for you to reference, including English and other language dictionaries, an Apple terms dictionary, a thesaurus (second edition) (New!), and Wikipedia, which is a free online encyclopedia. You can select which sources you want to use as well as set parental controls to limit access to some works for specific users.

The Find and Replace commands make it easy to locate or replace specific text or formulas in a document. For example, you might want to find each reference to a individual or company name in a long report to verify that it’s properly used. Or you might want to replace all references to a special character in your document with another one. If you only know part of a word you want to find, you can use the Contains pop-up to help you locate what you’re looking for. If you are looking for a case sensitive text with upper and lower case characters, turn off the Ignore Case option. To make sure you check the entire document no matter where you start, turn on the Wrap Around option.

When you are working with Rich Text Format (RTF) and Word Format documents, you can change the format or the appearance of text and graphics in a document so that the document is easier to read and more attractive. A quick and powerful way to add emphasis to parts of a document is to format text using bold, italics, underline, or color. For special emphasis, you can combine formats, such as bold and italics. In addition, you can change the font style and size. A font is a set of characters with the same typeface or design that you can increase or decrease in size, such as Arial or Times New Roman. Font size is measured in points; one point is 1/72 of an inch high.

The TextEdit ruler does more than just measure. The horizontal ruler above the document shows the length of the typing line and lets you quickly adjust left and right margins, indents, and set tabs. You can hide the ruler to get more room for your document. When you press Return to start a new paragraph, TextEdit continues to use the same ruler settings. As you work with a document, ruler settings change. Instead of resetting ruler settings each time, you can copy and paste them.

Tabs set text or numerical data alignment in relation to the edges of a document. A tab stop is a predefined stopping point along the document’s typing line. Default tab stops are set every half-inch on the ruler, but you can set multiple tabs per paragraph at any location. Each paragraph in a document contains its own set of tab stops. The default tab stops do not appear on the ruler, but the manual tab stops you set do appear. Once you place a tab stop, you can drag the tab stop to position it where you want. If you want to add or adjust tab stops in multiple paragraphs, simply select the paragraphs first.

When you indent a paragraph, you move its edge in from the left or right margin. You can indent the entire left or right edge of a paragraph or just the first line. The markers on the ruler control the indentation of the current paragraph. The ruler has three markers. The top rectangle, called the paragraph indent marker, controls where the first line of the paragraph begins. The bottom triangle, called the left indent marker, controls where the remaining lines of the paragraph begin. The triangle on the right side of the ruler, called the right indent marker, controls where the right edge of the paragraph ends.

Kerning is the amount of space between each character that you type. Sometimes the space between two characters is larger than others, which makes the word look uneven. You can expand or condense the spacing to create a special effect for a title, or re-align the baseline, which is the position of characters to the bottom edge of the text—this is helpful for positioning the copyright or trademark symbols.

The lines in all TextEdit documents are single-spaced by default, which is appropriate for letters and most documents. But you can easily change your document line spacing to double or you can specify to allow extra space between every line. This is useful when you want to make notes on a printed document. Sometimes, you’ll want to add space above and below certain paragraphs, for headlines, or indented quotations to help set off the text. To set specialized line spacing settings, use the Other command on the Spacing pop-up. You can select options for line height, inter-line spacing, and paragraph spacing. Line height is the distance from the top of a line to the top of the line below it; inter-line spacing is the distance from the bottom of a line to the top of the line below it; and paragraph spacing is the distance from the bottom of a paragraph to the top of the first line in the paragraph below it.

The best way to draw attention to a list is to format the items with bullets or numbers. You can even create multi-level lists. For different emphasis, change any bullet or number style to one of TextEdit’s many predefined formats. For example, switch round bullets to check boxes or Roman numerals to lowercase letters. You can also customize the list style or insert a picture as a bullet. If you move, insert, or delete items in a numbered list, TextEdit sequentially renumbers the list for you. A table neatly organizes information into rows and columns. The intersection of a column and row is called a cell. Enter text into cells just as you would anywhere else in TextEdit, except that pressing the Tab key moves you from one cell to the next. You can format a table just like you format any other text in TextEdit.

When you want to apply multiple groupings of formatting, such as font type, size and color, use a style. A style is a collection of formatting settings saved within a document or favorites list that you can apply to text. TextEdit keeps track of all the styles in the current document. If you want to save a style for use in all documents, you can add it to a favorites list. TextEdit provides a few basic favorite styles. But you can add your own to create the exact look you want. If you need a quick way to apply a single instance of formatting, you can copy and paste it.

When you need to insert special characters such as ©, ™, or ® that don’t appear on your keyboard, you can use a special accessory called Special Character to do the job. Special Character is available in Mac applications and displays all the characters that are available for each of the fonts on your computer.

If you have a picture, movie, or another file, (such as another text file, spreadsheet, or PDF), you can place them within a TextEdit document. Before you can add a picture, movie, or files to a TextEdit document, the file needs to be converted to the Rich Text Format (RTF). Pictures and movies appear in the document as embedded graphics, while files appear as embedded icons. With embedding, a copy of the file becomes part of the TextEdit file. If you want to edit the embedded file, you make changes in the TextEdit file, and the original file remains intact. You can double-click the embedded graphics or icons to open and view the files.

Saving your files frequently ensures that you don’t lose work during an unexpected power loss. The first time you save, specify a file name and folder in the Save As dialog. The next time you save, the program saves the file with the same name in the same folder. If you want to change a file’s name or location, you can use the Save As dialog again to create a copy of the original file. The Save As dialog appears in a compact view (useful for saving in the same place) and an expanded view (useful for saving in a different location or creating a new folder). Expanded view includes the Sidebar, and List and Column view. To conserve your computer’s resources, close any file you are not working on.

You can use TextEdit to create and edit HTML code documents. You can open an existing HTML file or create a new one using plain text or RTF Rich Text Format. If you want to add graphics to your RTF document, you cannot save it as an HTML file. However, you can save it as a Web archive file. In addition, you can insert a link to an URL address into a document.

TextEdit preferences help you configure some of the more common features of the program. You can set preferences for new documents, default fonts, rich text processing, default plain text encoding, editing, and saving. These preference areas allow you to turn features on and off as well as customize the way TextEdit works.