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Safari Text Annoyance

One of the nice things about Safari has been that it apparently uses the same text engine as TextEdit (or did), wherein a string of text can be selected easily by double-clicking the first word, then pressing <shift> and clicking anywhere in the last word in the string; the last word is selected in entirety and the string can be copied. In other programs, e.g. Pages, one must precisely click on the last letter in the last word to get the whole word, which is an annoying hassle for one accustomed to the ease of working with text in TextEdit.


Now suddenly I find that Safari v.11.1 (latest) in a fresh install of 10.12.6 Sierra on a brand new MacBook Pro has reverted to the bad old system: to copy a string of text I must carefully capture the very last letter rather than simply clicking anywhere in the last word. Which, again, is an annoyance, after years of doing it the easy way, as I copy a lot of stuff off Web pages.


I've tried reinstalling Safari 11.1, but it didn't help. I checked Chrome; it works the easy way, as do Brave and Vivaldi; Firefox does it the hard way.


However, Safari 11.1 with 10.11.6 El Capitan (on my MacBook) selects text the easy way. Strange.


Anybody have any idea why this function has changed, and/or what I can do to get it back?

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.6), 2.2GHz (2015), 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD

Posted on Apr 19, 2018 4:44 PM

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Apr 19, 2018 6:27 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks for the response. However…


Even the latest MacBook Pro (2017) will run Sierra. This one (2015 model) I found on eBay, brand new in sealed box with full warranty, and with High Sierra installed (don't know how that happened). But I've never liked being a beta tester, don't need any of its Great New Features, and am not anxious to have to spend more money to upgrade software; so erased the SSD and did a fresh install of Sierra. I included those details to emphasize that this annoyance has appeared immediately on a fresh install.


As for Safari 11.1, it was included in the updates installed immediately on the new System. To reinstall I got the 11.1 installer at MacUpdate, which is unofficial but convenient in a case like this. After spending a couple days rebuilding my system setup, the idea of doing it all again doesn't appeal. Maybe I'll have to, I guess.


Do you not have this annoyance in Safari in High Sierra?

Safari Text Annoyance

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