Create highlighter pen effects in TextEdit
Jan 06, '10 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: toc-rox
It's possible to set the background color of a text area in TextEdit, like this:
To do this, you need a corresponding style., and here's how to do this. First, download SVG-Colors.html (Dropbox | macosxhints), and open it in TextEdit. Click the Styles drop-down menu and select Other, then use the arrow keys to go to your desired highlighter color -- you want the actual line with color, not the word describing the color.
With the desired color visible in the window, click the Add to Favorites button (with the Document Styles radio button enabled). In the little window that appears, give the new style a descriptive name ("yellow highlighter"), and leave the two boxes unchecked.
You can now apply that style to selected text in any of your TextEdit documents. Read on if you'd like to see how this works, and how to customize it to your liking.
The SVG-Colors.html file includes all colors with a svg/w3c color name. You can select a color and add it to your favorite styles. Each color is defined by svg/w3c name, hex, and RGB value. If the background color you are looking for isn't in the list, you can add it yourself:
- Open SVG-Colors.html in a standard/plain text editor (eg. TextWrangler).
- Add the background color code you want to use in a line of HTML:
mycolor <span style="background-color:#876543;">mycolor #876543</span>
- Save the file.
Tip: How do I get rid of Favorite Styles in TextEdit? Open the Styles drop-down menu, choose Favorite Styles, select the style you want to delete, then select Remove From Favorites.
Tip: You can use the same styles in xPad as in TextEdit: Activate Show Ruler in xPad; if you add a new style within TextEdit, relaunch xPad to see it.
[robg adds: This worked as described for me.]
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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20091231015326311