Since when could TextEdit do Math?!

[MacATDBB]

I knew that more recent versions of MacOS's simple textedit tool could represent mathematical symbols, but didn't realise it could actually do basic math ... was this always here or is it a recent addition?

I entered:

(2^pi)*(1/3e-4)

as soon as I type the equals sign, textedit supplied the answer:

(2^pi)*(1/3e-4)=29,416.593

what other capabilities am I missing?

 

[MayflyMaven]

Apple added that in Sequoia (although I didn't realize it was available in TextEdit too, that's neat).

what other capabilities am I missing?

You can check out the WWDC 2024 Keynote to see what other features were added.

 

[Fishrrman]

I tried this myself.
At first, with the latest version of TextEdit, it didn't work.

Hmmm...
Then I tried it with my OLD version of TextEdit (1.6), and... it DID.

Hmmm... (again)
Then I noticed:
This works only if your TE doc is "rich text" (which my old version of TE was set to create).
If the doc is "plain text" (which is how I have my new version of TE set), it won't work...

 

[MacATDBB]

At first, with the latest version of TextEdit, it didn't work.

I'm also slightly perplexed regarding when this does and doesn't work.

It worked for me in plain text mode in textedit 1.20 (see attached). But after I quit textedit and started it again, it didn't immediately work. But then it started working again.

 

[Nermal]

Funnily enough, you're the second person to notice in as many days (although that was in Notes).

I noticed this around six months ago when I was making some notes about something. In my case it actually got in the way as I was just trying to say something along the lines of "3 cm = red, 4 cm = blue" and it started converting to inches (or something to that effect).