TextEdit shows incomplete file?

Question

TextEdit shows incomplete file?

Recently TextEdit has not been displaying the entire length of an RTF text file. It's a pretty long file, and I can only scroll through maybe the first half or so. It is as if the second half of the file was deleted. This is still true if I open an earlier version of the file from TimeMachine. However, if I open the file (or a copy of it) using Pages, the entire file is there (I'm not saving over the file from Pages, though). I fairly recently upgraded to High Sierra 10.13.1, but this problem began more recently than that upgrade. I'm on a new iMac with nice specs.

It appears that TextEdit is suddenly only able to access the first half of the file, though the file itself is still complete.

Any idea what is going on?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Nov 19, 2017 8:24 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

dominic23

Level 10

83,910 points

Nov 19, 2017 11:13 AM in response to christianfrommd

I experience the same problem.

Upon testing, I found a workaround until I can pinpoint the cause.

Move the mouse pointer to the right edge of the window where the scrollbar usually appears.

The pointer will change into a double headed arrow.

Drag it inward or outward to adjust the width of the window.

The scrollbar should snap up making the page scrollable.

You may have to repeat this few times to go to the bottom/end of the page.

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Answer 2

Nov 19, 2017 11:14 AM in response to dominic23

Nice find! Resizing the window width makes more of the content scrollable downward. I think I had to repeat about 5 times to get to the very end. But still only a workaround. Thank you, that is helpful!

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Answer 3

MN_Jim_G

Level 1

8 points

Nov 20, 2017 8:03 AM in response to christianfrommd

I have exactly the same problem on my MacBook Pro with macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.1. I didn't notice it until a few days after installing High Sierra. Maybe I didn't look beyond the first part of the file at first. The work around is fine but has to be done every time the file is opened.

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