TextEdit misbehaving ever since upgrading to Monterey.

[Drifty_Child]

2018 MBP

Used Mojave for years, upgraded to Monterey a few months ago.

I'm an avid user of TextEdit, but ever since I upgraded to Monterey, it has misbehaved. Copy-pasting behaves poorly any time there are newlines in the copied text.

Here is an example. Say I have two TextEdit files open. Both are .txt files created inside of TextEdit. These files have never been opened in any other app, just TextEdit. Now then, let's say I want to copy-paste text from one window to the other. (This text contains at least 1 newline.) When I paste the text, tons of extra newlines are included in the pasted text, which were not originally there. I cannot highlight them with the mouse, or move the vertical place-marker | over it. There are only three ways to make it go away. One is closing and re-opening the file, then the extra newlines vanish. The next is to scroll until it's outside the window's viewport (doing so is visually buggy) and then scrolling back. The third is to either type a character or delete a character in a line adjacent to the newlines, then they instantly vanish.

Edit: Let me emphasize, I'm talking about plain text files. Not RTF or anything with styles.

As someone who constantly copies text between TextEdit windows, this has slowed me down dramatically and made it borderline unbearable to work with. I've messed with the settings, but no changes seem to help anything. Can anyone help diagnose the issue, or potentially solve it? I just wanna be able to copy text between TextEdit files without nonsense.

 

[bogdanw]

Try
"Option-Shift-Command-V: Paste and Match Style: Apply the style of the surrounding content to the item pasted within that content."
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

 

[Drifty_Child]

Try
"Option-Shift-Command-V: Paste and Match Style: Apply the style of the surrounding content to the item pasted within that content."
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

I tried, and that doesn't fix it. Let me emphasize, I'm talking about plain text files. Not RTF or anything with styles.

 

[Isamilis]

I never had such experience. Have you tried new install Monterey?

 

[bogdanw]

Let me emphasize, I'm talking about plain text files. Not RTF or anything with styles.

I understand that, as something similar happened to me.
I always use txt files, TextEdit is set New Document options – Format - Plain text, all Options disabled, but several times when pasting (⌘V) an URL in a plain text file it turned blue and was clickable.
That’s why I mostly use ⌥⇧⌘V now.

Change preferences in TextEdit on Mac https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/textedit/txted1063/1.17/mac/12.0

 

[Nermal]

Can anyone help diagnose the issue, or potentially solve it?

I wish I could. I use my old OS 10.14 machine for "serious" TextEdit work due to how unreliable the modern versions are. I'm watching this thread with interest in case there's a fix.

This was also an issue in OS 11. I'm not sure whether 10.15 was affected as I more-or-less skipped that version.

 

[Drifty_Child]

I never had such experience. Have you tried new install Monterey?

I haven't tried this, but if I don't manage to solve it soon, perhaps I should do that.

 

[Drifty_Child]

I understand that, as something similar happened to me.
I always use txt files, TextEdit is set New Document options – Format - Plain text, all Options disabled, but several times when pasting (⌘V) an URL in a plain text file it turned blue and was clickable.
That’s why I mostly use ⌥⇧⌘V now.

Change preferences in TextEdit on Mac https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/textedit/txted1063/1.17/mac/12.0

How strange, that's never happened to me. Alright, I set the preferences to those settings. Sadly it doesn't seem like it's affected the issue.

 

[Drifty_Child]

I wish I could. I use my old OS 10.14 machine for "serious" TextEdit work due to how unreliable the modern versions are. I'm watching this thread with interest in case there's a fix.

This was also an issue in OS 11. I'm not sure whether 10.15 was affected as I more-or-less skipped that version.

I'm curious, what makes the modern versions unreliable?

 

[splifingate]

I'm curious, what makes the modern versions unreliable?

I, too, am interested in the difference

 

[splifingate]

2018 MBP

Used Mojave for years, upgraded to Monterey a few months ago.

I'm an avid user of TextEdit, but ever since I upgraded to Monterey, it has misbehaved. Copy-pasting behaves poorly any time there are newlines in the copied text.

Here is an example. Say I have two TextEdit files open. Both are .txt files created inside of TextEdit. These files have never been opened in any other app, just TextEdit. Now then, let's say I want to copy-paste text from one window to the other. (This text contains at least 1 newline.) When I paste the text, tons of extra newlines are included in the pasted text, which were not originally there. I

If I copy (Monterey 12.6.8) a block of text into another (separate) block of text, I get a 1:1 copy.

I have my TE defaults set to "Plain text"


(with no deprecation) I cannot duplicate your stated behaviour.

cannot highlight them with the mouse, or move the vertical place-marker | over it. There are only three ways to make it go away. One is closing and re-opening the file, then the extra newlines vanish. The next is to scroll until it's outside the window's viewport (doing so is visually buggy) and then scrolling back. The third is to either type a character or delete a character in a line adjacent to the newlines, then they instantly vanish.

Edit: Let me emphasize, I'm talking about plain text files. Not RTF or anything with styles.

As someone who constantly copies text between TextEdit windows, this has slowed me down dramatically and made it borderline unbearable to work with. I've messed with the settings, but no changes seem to help anything. Can anyone help diagnose the issue, or potentially solve it? I just wanna be able to copy text between TextEdit files without nonsense.

 

[Drifty_Child]

Mine is set to Plain Text too.

I still have not solved the problem. Here are my settings, if it helps at all. I've also tried both enabling and disabling Smart Copy/Paste.

 

[Nermal]

I'm curious, what makes the modern versions unreliable?

The very issue discussed in this thread.

 

[Gravydog316]

i had issues with TextEdit wayyy before 2023
(scrolling, selecting text would be wrong, & on & on...)
...still slightly buggy...