All TextEdit documents created in earlier MacOS's (High Sierra and earlier) open as badly garbled documents in my newly-installed Monterey OS's version of TextEdit. None of the obvious Options in the Open menu works, nor does Reset Prefs. I can still open those docs just fine in the High Sierra and El Capitan versions of TextEdit on older computers.
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.6
VikingOSX wrote:
Then, there is something about those documents, and not Bean or TextEdit. What is the actual file extension on that file?
I just used the current version of Bean on macOS Ventura 13.3.1 to open both .rtf and .rtfd from several years ago. Thus, the problem is not Bean or TextEdit, but corrupted documents, or documents that are some other format than what you think they are.
Place one of this documents on your Desktop, and then launch the Terminal application. Enter the following at the Terminal prompt, where filename is the actual name of the document on your Desktop:
cd ~/Desktop
file --mime-type filename
head -n1 <<<"$(< filename)"
# {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1671\cocoasubrtf600
You should see something similar to the last commented output if it really is a .rtf file.
No cats were harmed in this example.
I am curious: is there any reason the last command above should be using the much shorter notation below?
head -1 filename
I discovered a clue: when I use Command-B to make bold text, it creates those weird characters. The Monterey version of TextEdit only makes bold text through the font menu. That may be why my documents created in older versions appear the way they do.
In Monterey TextEdit new document, if I type the first sentence of my last message, select the type and do Command-B, it produces the result shown in the screen shot below. That is Helvetica default type. However, if I use Times font, the Command-B bold command works normally. This is a font issue, however all of my past documents created on previous MacOS's were done with Helvetica, so I'll have to change the font in each document. I'll try that and report back.
Font Book > Helvetica > Show in Finder
jfgaylord wrote:
That is incorrect. No I don't have any other version of Helvetica installed – only what came with the Monterey MacOS. If that is corrupted, then it looks like I'll have to reinstall the OS.
You have at least 14 different versions of Helvetica installed, along with apparently several hundred additional 3rd party fonts. And many of those are positively ancient.
It is accessing the “correct” fonts. You have all of those fonts in your home directory. They are inside the “Library” folder, which is hidden by default. When you do one of those “show in Finder” operations, it will show the file in a hidden folder. But if you go looking for it, you won’t find it, because it’s hidden.
Normally, this is a good thing. There are very few files in the Library folder that end users should be accessing. The Fonts folder is one of those rare exceptions.
I’m not sure about the current state of your fonts. They are managed both by the various Fonts folders (plural) and by the font system database. Your configuration is obviously all screwed up. Maybe the best approach is to move all those user Fonts aside, restart, then double-check that they aren’t listed in Font book. I don’t know for sure what you will find at that point.
I don’t recommend having any old operating systems visible. That will really confuse both the current system and possibly the other one. You are in “undefined” territory. Any visible disk is part of the operating system at some level. Modern versions of macOS simply aren’t designed for that.
Would it be possible to share one of those documents (being careful that it does not contain any private information, of course) so we can test?
[Edited by Moderator]
You didn't read carefully. Yes, I opened a new document. I typed < Command-B > then selected the text and used the (bold) command-B keystrokes. That produced the weird type. I later discovered it was the Helvetica font that got corrupted because Times works fine. I will try other fonts as well and I'll let you know if I encounter the same defect.
Thanks everyone for your help. Now you know there's a bug in Monterey TextEdit.
BTW after uploading one of the .rtf docs to Google Drive, I viewed it from their server and the formatting looks correct except that links I had entered (Edit > "add link") don't show up there.
Terminal returned: {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1561\cocoasubrtf610
I doubt the documents are corrupted since all of them appear normally when opened with TextEdit on my three older MacOS systems incl. High Sierra, El Capitan, and 10.6.8 – even after I have opened them on my Monterey system (without doing any editing).
Thanks for posting.
I opened this in two different macs, both running Ventura.
It looks the same in both. The first line says "HEALTH CARE", and it has some text in black, also some text in pinkk.
Here is a screenshot of an excerpt.
Does it look like it was supposed to?
And I also got a reprimand for suggesting the way to post. Unfortunately the enforcement of the rules causes us some grief even though we may mean well. I do understand that posting links can be a risk and thus it is frowned upon by the moderators, and links swiftly removed. Fortunately the link still got to me in the e-mail before it was removed.
That's odd.
I do not have a Monterey mac to test on. In my Ventura mac, Command-B works as expected.
Does pressing Command-B highligt the Format menu in your mac? Could it be that Command-B is assigned to something else?
If I type "Command-B" select the text and use the command, it produces the symbols shown in the screen shot. It also disables any further text entry (except for return/enter which only moves the cursor). It does not bring up the formatting menu. If I copy that weird text and enter it here, it appears normally (but not boldface).
jfgaylord wrote:
If I type "Command-B" select the text and use the command, it produces the symbols shown in the screen shot. It also disables any further text entry (except for return/enter which only moves the cursor). It does not bring up the formatting menu. If I copy that weird text and enter it here, it appears normally (but not boldface).
You are going to have to be more specific on these things.
Here is what happens when I try to follow your steps to reproduce:
1) I don't know where to start. From your screenshot, it looks like you've opened a new TextEdit document. So I did that.
2) I type command-b. It does nothing except turn on boldface for any subsequent text I may type. I can tell this by the change in the toolbar for the boldface text indicator.
3) I can't select any text because I haven't typed any. Maybe I should type something then?
4) Use the command. What command? Command-B? That just turns off boldface. Should I type some specific text, select it, and then type command-b? Is there some specific text that causes this? If so, what is it?
Maybe you have some shortcut defined for command-b?
I can't reproduce anything like what you are describing. Unless you have some other way to reproduce, the only answer is that these documents are simply corrupt. If this happens on a new document, then something about your configuration is corrupt. Erase the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. What ever you did to setup the computer the first time - don't do that.
This is a new clean install of Monterey MacOS and I haven't installed any other fonts yet, although I installed other fonts on previous MacOS's where I created those TextEdit docs, but I hadn't selected any of those installed fonts and merely had used the default Helvetica font. So clearly this is a bug.
TextEdit docs opened in MacOS 12.6 Monterey are garbled
