INSERT MODE

In Windows the keyboard has an "Ins" or "Insert" key. It toggles insert mode on and off. Insert mode means that text is inserted at the cursor, when toggled it becomes "overwrite" mode and overwrites what is already at the cursor. The cursor becomes a blob instead of a caret. From that point on until the toggle is reversed, what you type overwrites the text under the blob cursor. I simply want to achieve that effect.

I have to edit a machine-generated text document every day which requires me to replace a couple of hundred single spaces with hyphens. In insert mode I would just move the cursor to the relevant space and hit the hyphen, then move on to the next offending space, as I have done for over a year in Windows. Tedious but manageable. As this does not apply to all the space characters in the document, any form of search/replace function in the software would not help. So far the only solution I have found is to use a Windows text editor (TextPad) running under Parallels which has an Insert mode toggle button on its toolbar. Click that and it behaves as if I had hit the Insert key on a Windows keyboard. The cursor even changes to a blob. Insert/Overwrite mode is useful anywhere you have to edit text in a document, spreadsheet, or database.

Michael

Could I? Surely this works the same as Find/Find Next/Replace/Replace All in every text and programming editor worth its salt. Each space in the document, literally thousands of them, would require a key press to process.

The function l am looking for has been in common use throughout the world for the last 35 years to my knowledge and is very useful, personally I have used it more than the Caps Lock. It’s also useful for the disabled. Either it can be simply achieved on a Mac keyboard or not, that is the question. If not I can get around it a number of ways, but all are more time consuming and error-prone.

Thank you so much for answering my original question with a yes or no! My ultimate solution will probably be to write a program to reconfigure the file that I receive, or possibly a complex macro, but I have only had the Mac a week or so and am painfully aware that the keyboard is full of mysteries I have not yet fathomed. There might have been a magic key combination that toggled an insert/overwrite mode.

Thanks. Why am I not surprised? I expect some other programs designed for Windows do too. I can’t find the option in Thunderbird though. If Word does it, Visual Studio Code might too, though the idea of buying a Mac was to escape the tyranny of MS! At least it’s free.

I already explained why that function doesn’t do the job. I could have been using it in TextPad on the PC if it did. And I have already given BBEdit a try- it doesn’t have vital (for me) functions I have been using in TextPad for years. The latter runs nicely under Parallels. But all that doesn’t help get something that works as an insert mode toggle when writing emails or working on a database. Take it from me, I know how to use a fully featured text editor. I have 40 years experience.

Of course I could do that, and exactly the same thing can be done in Windows.

With respect my question has been answered. Your first question was answered in detail in my reply to it, yet you deny this. Further correspondence is pointless in those circumstances.

The question isn’t about either, it’s about Apple keyboard functions, how to achieve Insert/Overwrite under the native OS with the apple keyboard.