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I prefer to use OpenOffice for word processing. Since I downloaded Mountain Lion, my documents now appear in TextEdit. Is it possible to change this?
iMac (20-inch Mid 2007), OS X Mountain Lion
I'm assuming you are referring to files with .doc or .docx extensions (and even maybe .rtf or .rtfd).
In Finder, select one such document file (don't open it), CMD+I to 'Get Info'.
In the Get Info popup, you should see an option "Open with:" (if you can't, click the little triangles to expand each option), with a drop-down menu. Choose your preferred Word Processor in the drop-down and then click the Change All button to make that default to all documents of that type.
Repeat for the other file types as necessary. You may have to Relaunch Finder if the file doesn't open with the new application (rare though)
edwin, thanks for trying... 🙂
that doesn't work for me, though i did try again, just in case!
in the get info window, even though the pull down has open office as an option, when i click it, it auto reverts to text edit. the SAME thing happens when i right click, open with, other..., choose open office, check always use this application. it still reverts back to text edit when i try to open the same document the next time.
very annoying.
but i think i'm onto something as far as my problem goes, and if it works, i'll be back to share soon.
oh, wait!! i was doing something wrong the first try and re-read your post, edwin, and tried again and wham-o!
it works!!
here's what edwin was saying, in pictures... i think. anyway, it's what i did. and it worked!!
just to reiterate.
>>right click>>get info
>>sharing & permissions
1) click unlock (the padlock picture in bottom right corner) - enter admin pasword
2) check box >> locked -- i don't know if this is irrelevant, but i clicked it when fixing the problem on both of my macs
3) change the 'open with:' option to OpenOffice (pop up to allow changes) & then go back and undo everything you did previous.
halelujah!
thanks SO much.
Well, I'm glad it all worked for you but...
amadasoy wrote:
1) click unlock (the padlock picture in bottom right corner) - enter admin pasword
That padlock only affects the Sharing and Permissions section of the get info dialog, so it should not be necessary to carry out the other two steps.
i know. it shouldn't have worked. but then again, it shouldn't have stopped working in the first place!
i tried it with just clicking the 'locked' box above, without the padlock. i tried the padlock without the locked box.
and got nothing.
it could be that somewhere along the way i made a mistake, but in the end that WAS the winning combination! 🙂
oh and ps. it actually does seem that it had to do with permissions, and that was the secret combo to unlock the whole thing, because previously when i tried to change the default program... nothing. but when i unlocked down there before making the changes it asked for the admin password, which was more than i got before. just sayin'.
Thank you. This worked until I got to "Open with." The default is TextEdit and when I checked OpenOffice, it would not change; therefore, I could not choose Change All.
Yes, I have read and write privileges. I tried your suggestions with several documents and was unable to change any of them. Thank you for your patience!
...and, no messages came up.
YES YES YES. Thank you so much!
😎
Hello again! Yes, I have run disk utility and all is well. In another twist, all of my .docx files have changed to .odt and all open in TextEdit. Does that give you any clue?
Hmm, installing an OOO update allowed you to use the 'change all' functionality!! That's interesting...
anyway glad it worked out for you
Yes. "Interesting" is an interesting word! 🙂
Glad it was helpful. As I remember now (it was August when I had the problem), I did just allow the exception for OpenOffice. Good to go until the next glitch!
Thank you so much!
How can I delete TextEdit as my default word processing application?
