While there are jobs that need a full fledged word processor, there are multiple times during the day when I just need a place to put some text. I don’t want columns or hanging indents or layer upon layer of formatting. I just want to type some words! One of the applications that you will find hiding in your application folder is called TextEdit. Open it and then right-click on the icon in the dock and choose keep in dock. Aside from the fact that it is just a nifty little word processor there is another little trick you can do with it.

This is one of those tiny little Mac things that is not hugely important but it just makes you smile. If you frequently run across snippets of text on the web that you want to save or email someone the Mac has a few ways to make this easy. Just select the text. If you are using Mail.app, you can drag the text onto the icon in the dock and it will open up a message with the text in it – all you have to do is add the addressee and click send.

If you have the TextEdit icon in the dock, you can drag the selected text onto the icon and TextEdit will open with the text already inserted. Now if it a large amount of text and you want a summary there is one more trick. Highlight the text in TextEdit and click on TextEdit in the upper left corner of your screen. Click on services and you will see a list of things that you can do. this list changes depending on what application you are in and what software is installed on your Mac. Right now we are going to choose Summarize. You can choose summarize by sentence or paragraph and you can adjust the size. When you click to close you will have the option to save or discard. Go on – give it a try. These are some of my favorite tips!