Document Basics

Overview	Launching TextSpresso	Creating A Document
Opening Documents	Saving Documents	Closing Documents
Editing Documents	Using Undo & Redo	Text Editing Commands

Overview

This chapter introduces you to the basics of using TextSpresso as a text editor. This includes such things as creating documents, editing them, using Undo/Redo, using the History Palette, and saving your documents.

If you are already familiar with these concepts you may wish to skip to the next chapter to learn about using TextSpresso's filters.

Though users often use the words document and file interchangeably, in this chapter each has a specific meaning. In this chapter a document is text that exists in TextSpresso's memory. A file is text that exists on a disk. A document may or may not have a corresponding file on disk.

Launching TextSpresso

You launch TextSpresso just like any other Macintosh application, by double-clicking on the TextSpresso icon in the Finder.

Creating A New Document

To create a new TextSpresso document, do one of the following:

• Select New from the File menu. This creates a new, unsaved text document.
• Select New (Clipboard) from the File menu. This creates a new, unsaved text document which contains the text currently on the clipboard. If there is no text currently on the clipboard, a blank document is created.

You will see a new document window for viewing and editing your new text document.

Opening Documents

TextSpresso can open any standard text file regardless of the creator. To open an existing text file do the following:

1. Select Open... from the File menu.
2. Using the standard Mac OS open file dialog which appears, navigate to and select the file you wish to open. Double click the file in the scroll list or click the Open button.

The text file will be opened up into a new document window.

By holding down the option key while performing step 1 above you can get TextSpresso to open virtually any Macintosh file as a text file. Be careful when using this feature! Editing a non-text file in TextSpresso could cause damage to the file making it unreadable within its native application. You should only edit copies of non-text files.

Saving Documents

Like with most Macintosh applications, whenever you make a change to a document that change occurs only in RAM. Whether you're typing some text or applying a complex filter, the results are not recorded to a disk file until you explicitly save your document. To save a TextSpresso document to a file on disk, do one of the following:

• Select Save from the File menu. If there is already a file on disk for the front document, it is saved. If not, then the actions in the next step are automatically taken.
• Select Save As... from the File menu. This allows you to save your document to a new file on disk. TextSpresso will present you with a standard Mac OS save dialog. Using that dialog, navigate to the place on your disk where you would like to save the document, type in a name for the file, and click the Save button.
• Select Save All from the File menu. This saves all open documents which already have disk files.

If you wish to save only a subset of the text in an open document, do the following:

• Using the mouse, select the portion of text which you would like to save to disk in a new file.
• Select Save Selection... from the File menu. You will see a standard Mac OS save dialog. The selected text will be saved to disk, and you will be returned to your document.

Closing Documents

To close an open TextSpresso document, do one of the following:

• Select Close from the File menu.
• Click the close box in the upper left hand corner of the document window.

If you have not saved the document since the last change, TextSpresso will first ask you if you would like to save it.

Holding down the option key while selecting Close or clicking the close box closes all open documents.

Editing Documents

You edit a TextSpresso document just like you would any Macintosh document. After you've opened it you can begin typing or you can select one of many commands from the Edit and Text menus.

Some of those commands, like Copy, require that you make a selection of one or more characters in the document before you can perform the command. They are dimmed until you select some text.

Other commands, like Paste, are performed at the current selection. If the blinking text cursor is in the middle of a sentence and you select Paste, then the text on the clipboard is inserted in the middle of that sentence. If, however, the entire sentence is selected, then the text is pasted over the sentence, replacing the selected characters.

Some commands, like Hard Wrap..., are applied to the selected text if there is any selected text. If not, they are automatically applied to a portion of the text surrounding the blinking cursor. In the case of Hard Wrap... that would be the entire document. In the case of Shift Left that would be the line the cursor is on.

Finally, Macintosh drag and drop is supported in document windows. You can drag text around within a document. You can also drag text to other applications and the desktop, and drop text from other applications or the desktop into your document.

Using Undo & Redo

TextSpresso is about editing and filtering text. As you go about working with your text you may perform an action you wish you hadn't. Most Macintosh applications include an Undo command which allows you to undo the last action you performed. If you undo your last action the command is typically toggled to say Redo. Select it again and your last action is redone.

TextSpresso goes a step further and provides multi-level Undo/Redo. Rather than remember just the very last action, TextSpresso remembers multiple prior actions for each open document, otherwise known as the document's history. The limit to the number of actions remembered for each open document is set in the Preferences window. It is preset to 10, but can be set as high as 100. You will learn more about the Preferences window in a later chapter.

Essentially everything you do which affects the document is remembered. As you perform distinct editing steps, those steps are remembered in the document's history cache. If you perform an action and the history cache is full, the oldest remembered action is discarded.

To Undo/Redo actions, do the following:

• To undo your last action, select Undo from the Edit menu. Each time you select Undo you move one step backward through your document's history.
• To redo an undone action, select Redo from the Edit menu. Each time you select Redo you move one step forward through your document's history.

To jump to a specific point in your document's history do one of the following:

• Select the history point you wish to jump to from the History submenu of the Edit menu. The current point is checked. Actions listed above the current point are in the future, so to speak, and selecting one of them will redo all actions to that point. Actions listed below the current point are in the past, so to speak, and selecting one of them will undo all actions to that point.
• Select the history point you wish to jump to in the History Palette. The current history point is selected and hilited in the palette. Like the History submenu, future actions are above the current point and past actions below. Click once on the point you wish to move to.

It's important to remember that jumping to a specific point in your document's history restores your document to its exact form after that action was performed. You're not undoing/redoing just that action, but all actions to that point.

Also, if you undo one or more actions and then perform a new action, all future actions are discarded and replaced with the new action. So if you perform 8 actions, jump back to the 2nd action, and then accidentally hit a key on your keyboard, actions 3-8 will be discarded and you will not be able to redo them. Keep this in mind whenever you undo one or more actions.

Text Editing Commands

The following is a list of the text editing commands available in TextSpresso. Each command is listed with a short description of what it does.

File Menu

• Insert... presents a Mac OS open file dialog. The text of the file you select is inserted at the selection point in the document.

Edit Menu

• Cut removes the selected text from the document and places it on the clipboard.
• Copy copies the selected text to the clipboard. Does not affect the document.
• Paste inserts the text on the clipboard at the current selection.
• Clear removes the selected text from the document.
• Select Word selects the word around the text cursor.
• Select Sentence selects the sentence around the text cursor.
• Select Paragraph selects the paragraph around the text cursor.
• Select All selects all text in the document.

Text Menu

• Go To Line... jumps to the line number you specify.
• Balance selects the text enclosed by the nearest pair of brackets. Beeps if there is no complete bracket pair.
• Invert splits the text selection in half and switches the two halves so that the first half becomes the last, and the last first. If no text is selected, the two characters prior to the text cursor are inverted.
• Shift Left removes one tab from the beginning of the paragraph. If there are no tabs, does nothing.
• Shift Right inserts one tab at the beginning of the paragraph.
• Hard Wrap... wraps the text to the line width you specify by inserting carriage returns.