Creating Txt Documents with TextEdit

Use TextWrangler or SubEthaEdit, (both free and VERY good) and not TextEdit. Despite its name TextEdit just isn't any good for editing text-only documents, but it's OK for opening .rtf and simple .doc files.

 

TextEdit is just fine for editing plain text files including HTML. I use it all the time. Just make sure it's in plain text mode. From what I can tell you have already worked this out. You are seeing the difference between Unix line return characters and Windows line return characters. You can convert with the command line utils unix2dos and dos2unix.

Unfortunately my Mac does not seem to have these installed

You could try altering the settings in the Preferences (in the Open and Save tab) to save as Western (Windows Latin 1). I'm not sure that this will be enough though.

 

You might have better luck using a different text editor on the Mac, something that can more easily save files with windows-style (CRLF) line endings.

SubEthaEdit (free for personal use) is good for this, you'll find what you need to play happily with Windows under its Format menu.

(edit: Mitthrawnuruodo done beated me to it!!!@!)

 

TextEdit in plain text mode should be fine.

If you are worried about line endings, I would suggest using TextExtras (by one of the original developer's of TextEdit). It'll give you the option of using LF, CRLF, CR, PS and LS.

Plus it has a number of other features that are great for Rich Text formatted documents too.

 

Actually, the easiest solution is to go into the Preferences for TextEdit and set it to save as plain text by default all the time. This will fix your problem. I had the same issues that you mentioned in your post for this thread until I changed this preference.

 

Or simply type cmd-shift-T to convert to plain text.