Mac 101: TextEdit

Open TextEdit from the Dock or in the Applications folder.

Start typing whatever you want in the window. If you want to change the text alignment from the default left alignment, highlight the text and click one of the four alignment buttons in the toolbar to align left, center, justify, or align right.

TextEdit automatically checks spelling as you type and will underline words that it thinks are misspelled with a red dotted line. If you need help with the correct spelling, highlight the word and from the Edit menu, choose Spelling, then Spelling from the submenu to open the Spelling window. The window displays its best guesses for what you were trying to spell. To correct your mistake, select the correct word and click Correct.

For those of us who aren't spelling bee champs, TextEdit includes a built-in spell check.

To change the font, from the Format menu, choose Font, then Show Fonts. In the resulting Font window, select a font typeface and size from the columns. You can also choose to add an underline, add a strike-through, change the text color, and add a text shadow from the pop-up menus at the top of the Font window.

To add a photo, music, or movie file, just drag the file from a Finder window to the document.

To create a list, choose a style from the Lists pop-up menu and pick options like bullets, numbers, or lettered lists in the TextEdit window, then start typing your list. To end your list, choose None from the Lists pop-up menu.

Instead of manually entering bullet points, numbers, or letters, use the Lists pop-up menu to have TextEdit create the list formatting for you.

To create a table, from the Format menu, choose Text, then Table. In the resulting Table window, enter the number of rows and columns you want, select the text alignment, choose the cell border thickness and color, and choose a background color. Your TextEdit document updates as you make changes.