Do you need to buy software?
I thought we’d take a slightly different angle on Macstarter for a little while. As we’ve been delving into
shortcuts,
folders and
organising, I thought it was time to slow down on the technicals of
using a mac, and write about what tools you have to use. I’ve already put an article about
Preview, the most versatile of file viewers. But your Mac comes with a number of really useful programs that can actually help you in your day to day struggles.
Text Edit
The chances are you have Microsoft Office on your Mac. That’s great. It’s a great program. But do you need to use it for everything you type? Let’s say, you just need to type a list for a family member. Let’s say it’s a list of things to see on a holiday. Let’s say, you’re just taking notes, or copying and pasting text from a website. All of these things are easily done without Word. So let’s do it. Open up Text Edit. You need me to remind you how to open up a program? Try going to your Applications Folder or the best way is to
spotlight “textedit”.
Once it opens up, you’ll see that it’s a very plain and simple looking program. That’s where I think it’s a winning program! There aren’t 30 buttons to learn. There are no special tools or windows to get through. A blank page, a handful of logical buttons, and that’s that. Great.
Why is this better than Word? It’s not. But that’s the point of this article. We sometimes rely so much on software, we forget that we have a choice
not to use it! You’ll find it strange the first few times you use it. Where are all the dozens of buttons I’ve never used? Why is it so simple to use? But I promise you, you’ll find yourself concentrating more on what you’re thinking and typing, rather than setting up the page, and the fonts and whatever else has become our ritual when using standard software.
Once you’ve typed / copied and pasted what you need to do in Text Edit, it’s time to save it. So press save. But wait. You have a choice. Once you have decided on a name for the file, you can also choose what type of file it should be. Normally, Text Edit saves in “Rich Text Format” or RTF. This can be opened in Text Edit again, or in Word or almost any other program you need to use. But if you click on the File Format option, you will see a list of Files that Text Edit can save as.
The only Format that you should notice is the Word 97 (.doc) format. This means that you can type your document in Text Edit, and then save it as a Word document. This is excellent if you need to then send this document to somebody else who needs a Word Document.
So go ahead, try it out. Do not underestimate how powerful
simple can be!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 10:54PM
