Text editors are essential for coding, and it’s crucial to have the right one for your needs. Just like with integrated development environments, the software needs to meet the specific purposes of your project. While there are several free options, some boast premium functionalities, so come with a price tag. Let’s check out the features of what’s on offer so that you can take your pick from these best text editors for Mac.
- Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Free Version
- Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Free Download
- Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Freeware
- Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Free Online
Text Edit, the free text editor on the Mac, saves in Unicode by default, but to ensure that you are saving a Unicode.txt file, do the following: Text Edit saves as RTF (Rich Text) by default and includes formatting and font options. To convert your file to true plain text (.txt), go to the Format menu and select Make Plain Text. Download Moped Text Editor for macOS 10.14 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. If you come from the Windows world, you may be missing a small utility: Notepad, a simple but essential tool for editing plain text files.
Programmer's Notepad by Simon Steele is a well known code editor that offers support for a large number of programming languages and comes lots of handy features, including syntax highlighting and code folding. Even ithough Programmer's Notepad for Mac is not available on the Internet, there are plenty of alternative Mac apps you can use instead. Notepad for mac is a great alternative to Microsoft Office when you need a text editor that will help you get the job done easily. The user interface on notepad for mac is extremely enjoyable and an overall quality text editor. You can get notepad for mac free and use it as a daily text editor.
1. Sublime Text
Here’s a text editor that’s packed with functionality and provides a premium user experience. Some of the notable features include the split-editing, quick shortcuts, and a distraction-free writing mode.
Moreover, it supports a ton of keyboard shortcuts that ease your workflow. One of the most useful of these is the “Goto Anything” feature that allows you to instantly jump to symbols, lines, or words that you are looking for.
Price: Free Trial & $80
2. Atom
This one’s a highly customizable text editor that’s free. It’s packed full of useful features, and you can add a lot more thanks to the open-source packages.
The software is marketed as a “hackable” text editor because you can customize it and add your own tweaks by editing the CSS in its back end. The downside, though, is that it’s quite sizeable and not a light app.
Price: Free
3. UltraEdit
If you work with many massive text files, this can be one of the best Mac text editors for you. It supports a wide range of languages, from HTML and PHP to Javascript.
The interface is highly customizable to suit your unique needs. Further, there are many add-ons and extra features such as debugging, auto-complete, Templates, etc. Make use of custom keyboard shortcuts to work fast and smart.
Price: $79.95 per year
4. Notepad +
This free text editor features a tabbed document interface, support for macros and plugins, and an autosave function that automatically saves files temporarily before giving you the option of saving them to another location.
An interesting aspect is that it optimizes as many routines as possible without losing user-friendliness. This makes the system throttle down and reduces power consumption to be more environmentally friendly.
Price: Free
5. Brackets
Web designers will get a lot of use of the free Brackets text editor. It’s been designed by Adobe and boasts a helpful “Live Preview” feature, which allows you to see any CSS and HTML changes in real-time while you edit.
This proves useful in avoiding mistakes and keeping an eye on the final result. Another excellent plus point is that it works really well with other Adobe programs. For instance, you can quickly get the correct color, font, gradient, and measurement information from a photoshop file. This eases your workflow, and it can be made even more efficient with other extensions.
Price: Free
6. Visual Studio Code
Any roundup of text editors would be incomplete without a mention of Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code. It includes a terminal and debugger as well as integration with numerous source control tools. You can also download a variety of free extensions and packages for additional functionality.
Further, it’s been optimized for Mac and can highlight syntax for over 30 languages. The keyboard-centric interface, automatic real-time API description, and other features make this one worth checking out.
Price: Free
7. BBEdit
No matter the complexity of your coding projects, you can trust this text editor to handle it. It’s speedy, smooth, and packed full of convenient features.
For instance, when you copy a large chunk of text and open a new BBEdit document, it will automatically appear, ready to work on. It supports dozens of languages and provides helpful tools for both coders and writers.
Price: $3.99 per month
8. Espresso
As the name suggests, this app will supercharge your productivity when it comes to text editing. It’s got an impressive user interface with a three-column view for real-time editing that shows the code editor, your files, and the navigator.
You can see changes reflected instantly in the browser and the interface. Moreover, it supports drag-and-drop for ease of use. This is a Mac-only app and is especially well-suited for editing CSS.
Price: $99.00
9. Komodo Edit
Whether it’s Python, Perl, Ruby, HTML/CSS, Javascript, etc., Komodo IDE can handle it all. It’s free to use and has all the features you may need to get your project done, complete with debugging and testing.
Further, you can customize it with plugins and macros. Some of the extensions available include additional language supports, user interface enhancements, a functions list, etc. The speed and efficiency make it one of the best text editors for Mac.
Price: Free
10. Textmate 2
TextMate is a lightweight and minimalist app that’s still packed with the essential project management features. It also works with Xcode and comes with extensive documentation.
Some of the notable features include version control, file search, macros, snippets, etc. All in all, it’s a powerful and customizable text editor with support for several programming languages.
Price: Free
Summing Up
Have you tried any of these text editors for Mac yet? If you’re into app development, you might also like to check out the best iOS emulators.
You may want to take a peek at:
I have been writing about tech for over 10 years now. I am passionate about helping people solve their tech problems with easy and practical solutions. At iGeeksBlog, I write and edit how-to guides and accessory reviews for all things Apple. My work has previously appeared in Live IT and Woman’s Era magazines. When not working, I love reading and traveling.
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2020-12-28 17:33:53 • Filed to: macOS 10.15 • Proven solutions
If you use text editors a lot, you may find the built in macOS 10.15 text editor a little lacking in terms of features. Fortunately, there are a lot of free options you can download and use. The following are just 10 of the best we could find.
Top 10 Free Text Editors for macOS 10.15
1. Sublime Text 3
This is one of the most popular text editors for Mac OS X 10.15 and the reason is very simple; it has a lot of very useful features. For example, it is a very easy to use, has features that allow for folding and syntax highlighting and it has a very high level of customization. These features come at a cost since although the Sublime Text 3 has a free trial version; the premium version is very expensive.
Pros
- It is very easy to use
- Has a lot of useful features
- It offers numerous customization options
- Allows users to assign custom keyboard shortcuts
Cons
- Some of the plugins you have to use with this editor may affect its performance
- At $80 the premium version may be out of reach for many
2. Brackets
Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Free Version
Brackets is another very popular plain text editor for macOS 10.15. It is particularly beloved by web designers and was designed by Adobe. One of Brackets' best features is the 'Live Preview' feature that allows a live view of how CSS or HTML code appears in Chrome.
Pros
- It is free and open source
- It has a variety of free extensions to expand functionality
- It has a lot of great features
- Lightweight and easy to install
Cons
- It is useful mostly to front-end developers
- It doesn't have some fundamental useful commands you'd find on an ordinary text editor
3. Atom
Atom is a free text editor for Mac Catalina that has features as good and as useful as Sublime Text 3 but is completely free to use. It is also Open Source, which means it will be completely free to use and continues to be upgraded to include even more useful features. It is built on JavaScript, CSS, HTML Node.js integration and runs on Electron.
Pros
- It is completely free to use and open source
- Has a lot of features found on some premium tools
- It user interface is very pleasant
- Has a lot of customization options
Cons
- It has too many packages that can slow it down
- Can take up too many resources on your Mac
4. UltraEdit
If you are looking for a text editor that is versatile UltraEdit is the best tool for you. It supports a large variety of languages including JavaScript, Python, Perl, PHP and many more. But it is a relatively older text editor, having been released 25 years ago and this age could raise reliability concerns.
Pros
- It supports numerous languages
- It is regularly updated
- It is fast and easy to use
- Can handle large files easily
Cons
- At $99.95 for the premium version it is pricey
- You may have to purchase some features separately
5. BBEdit 12
Developed by Bare Bones software, BBEdit is another text editor for Mac that has been around for quite a while. It has dozens of customization options and numerous very useful features including built-in tools used for text manipulations.
Pros
- It is very reliable and dependable despite its age
- It offers great performance
- It has a variety of built-in tools and languages
- It is fast and very easy to use
Cons
- The premium version will cost you $49
6. Coda 2/ Nova
Coda 2 is a text editor that is designed for web developers and as such you will find that it has multiple useful features for web developers. These features include code folding, syntax highlighting, indentation guides, find and replace and project- wide autocomplete among others. This text editor recently received an upgrade, allowing it to perform faster and adding new features to its already great arsenal of features.
Pros
- It has a very useful search function that is also very reliable
- It allows users to access and edit files remotely
- Designed for web developers with features that can help make their work easier
Cons
- It has limited features when compared to similar editors
- At $99 the premium version is very expensive
7. Textastic
This is a text editor that combines power and a simple to use, friendly interface. This makes it the ideal tool for beginners although some of its powerful features may be ideal for every level of user. It comes packed with features, but perhaps the most useful is the ability to work in multiple tabs.
Pros
- It supports a large number of scripts and markup languages
- Allows users to work with multiple features
- Can sync with iCloud
Cons
Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Free Download
- It may not be as powerful as the other tools on this list
- It lacks SSH and Python support
8. TextMate
This is another simple to use text editor that may be appealing to both novices and expert users alike. It has powerful project management features and a simple to use interface to allow users to find those features quickly.
Pros
- It is Open Source
- It works with Xcode
- Lightweight and easy to install
Cons
Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Freeware
- At $56.25 the premium version is quite costly
9. Visual Studio Code
This Microsoft text editor's features are so compatible with the Mac that users don't feel any different than when using it on Windows. Its main features include a fast source-code editor, a keyboard centric code editing approach and being able to highlight syntax for 30 different languages.
Notepad++ Text Editor For Mac Free Online
Pros
- It is free to use
- Supports a lot of languages
- It has a simple and easy to understand user interface
- It is updated regularly and has various plugins for added performance
Cons
- It can be a bit complicated to learn how to use
- You may have to install too many plugins to get all the features you want
10. CodeRunner 2
This is a text editor that is specifically designed for Mac users and one of the most affordable Mac text editors in the market. It supports a wide range of languages and a lot of features while somehow remaining lightweight and very easy to use.
Pros
- It supports a lot of different languages
- It has a clean and simple to use interface
- It is highly customizable
- Has all the necessary IDE features
Cons
- It may not be the ideal to use for big projects or big files
- It has numerous features but not as much as the other premium tools on this list
Best PDF Editor for macOS 10.15
If you use text editors on a daily basis, chances are that you may also need a PDF editor. One of the best PDF editors to use for any project is PDFelement . This tool is designed to make it easier for you to not just create, but also manage and edit PDFs with ease. PDFelement allows users to carry out several functions including converting PDF documents to several other formats including Text, HTML, Word and many others.
Some of the features that make PDFelement the best tool include the following;
- It has highly effective editing tools to help you edit text, images, pages, links and watermarks on any PDF document
- An OCR function is very useful for converting scanned PDFs into editable formats
- You can use PDFelement for Mac to annotate a PDF document in numerous ways including commenting, highlighting, adding stamps, filling and drawing
- It also comes with numerous document protection features for documents with sensitive information. You can add a digital signature or password protect the PDF
- It allows you to easily print and share a PDF document
- Additional document creation, merging and numbering features make it a complete PDF editing suite
- It can also be used to convert PDFs to a variety of other formats including Word, TXT, HTML, PowerPoint and Excel among others
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!