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For some reason, when I type HTML into TextEdit and save it as an HTML document, and I load it, I see all the text, unformatted, including the tags. How would I fix this?

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"load it" into what? Safari? – sblair May 16 '11 at 16:19
Could you post the code you are using? – Jannemans May 16 '11 at 16:20
Firefox. And I's just <html> <body> Test </body </html> – JShoe May 16 '11 at 16:23
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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

You need to click "Make Plain Text" in the "Format" menu of TextEdit and then save the file with the extension ".html"

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Thanks! It worked! – JShoe May 16 '11 at 16:30
Now when I try to open it in text edit, it appears all black. I can't edit it after saving. – JShoe May 16 '11 at 17:15
Not 100% sure, but I'm guessing that TextEdit is trying to edit the html in WYSIWYG mode ("rich text mode"). There may be some way to force it to go one way or the other, but I'm not sure how. Personally, I'd recommend using something like TextWrangler. – nathang May 18 '11 at 20:04
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up vote 1 down vote

I had the same problem. Here are two links, a YouTube video and a website

The only thing that I would add to the previous comments (and to my own links) is that you need to copy your code before pressing Make Plain Text, because TextEdit seems to erase everything after your cursor after you press the Make Plain Text button--I lost all the info on my page, but at least I know how TextEdit works now.

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up vote -1 down vote

Try opening it with safari, or your current web browser. This can probally be done by clicking file>open (within the browser).

Here is a list of well known HTML editors designed specifically for macs. http://webdesign.about.com/od/macintoshhtmleditors/tp/macintosh-text-editors.htm has a list of software that is known for working great with

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I'd really like to just edit this in textedit and open it in firefox. Even opening it from within firefox won't work. – JShoe May 16 '11 at 16:26
Dreamweaver, Komodo Edit, CS5, Aptana Studio, NetBeans, Bluefish, Eclipse, (skEdit) and Seamonkey - all hand-crafted for OS X and great replacements for someone using TextEdit to edit HTML. – Lri May 17 '11 at 14:03
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