File format for saved Entourage messages

A

aRKay

I save some of my Entourage 2004 v11.3.11 email messages to a folder on
my hard drive they are saved as text files owned by the Apple OSX
TextEdit.app. Everything works great until I try to edit one of the
saved messages to add a note or reminder. The Apple TextEdit.app then
wants to create new file name in RTF format. I don't want the messages
save in RTF format and would like to know how to train TextEdit.app to
open and save in text format? Help will be appreciated.
 
J

Jolly Roger

I save some of my Entourage 2004 v11.3.11 email messages to a folder on
my hard drive they are saved as text files owned by the Apple OSX
TextEdit.app. Everything works great until I try to edit one of the
saved messages to add a note or reminder. The Apple TextEdit.app then
wants to create new file name in RTF format. I don't want the messages
save in RTF format and would like to know how to train TextEdit.app to
open and save in text format? Help will be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great question for the folks at comp.sys.mac.apps or
comp.sys.mac.system.
 
S

Steve Ball

Jolly Roger:
Sounds like a great question for the folks at comp.sys.mac.apps or
comp.sys.mac.system.
Click to expand...

A quick glance at TextEdit's 'Save As...' dialogue, reveals what the
programme's already telling you: it doesn't save plain text files. You'll
need a different app. Word, for example, saves to 'Text only with line
breaks'.

HTH,
Steve = : ^ )
 
A

aRKay

Steve Ball said:
Jolly Roger:


A quick glance at TextEdit's 'Save As...' dialogue, reveals what the
programme's already telling you: it doesn't save plain text files. You'll
need a different app. Word, for example, saves to 'Text only with line
breaks'.

HTH,
Steve = : ^ )
Click to expand...

How to you change Entourage to save files in a different format?
 
A

aRKay

Jolly Roger said:
Sounds like a great question for the folks at comp.sys.mac.apps or
comp.sys.mac.system.
Click to expand...

The problem is Entourage saves the files in TextEdit format.
 
M

Michelle

Text Edit DOES save as plain text. If you go into the preferences, you have
an option to have new documents as "rich text" or "plain text". There are
also options for fonts (for rich and plain text) and rich text processing.
My guess is that the original poster's preferences are set for "rich text"
on new documents. Go into the preferences and change this.
 
A

aRKay

aRKay said:
I save some of my Entourage 2004 v11.3.11 email messages to a folder on
my hard drive they are saved as text files owned by the Apple OSX
TextEdit.app. Everything works great until I try to edit one of the
saved messages to add a note or reminder. The Apple TextEdit.app then
wants to create new file name in RTF format. I don't want the messages
save in RTF format and would like to know how to train TextEdit.app to
open and save in text format? Help will be appreciated.
Click to expand...

I still have the problem and don't have a solution. Entourage saves
the messages and TextEdit opens them but will not let me edit the
document unless I change the format to RTF.

How do I get Entourage to save in a different format?

or

How do I configure TextEdit to let me edit and save the files in text
format?
 
M

Michelle

Did you check your TextEdit preferences as mentioned in my previous reply?
It's possible that's not the problem, but it could at least be ruled out.
 
A

aRKay

Michelle said:
Did you check your TextEdit preferences as mentioned in my previous reply?
It's possible that's not the problem, but it could at least be ruled out.
Click to expand...

Yes, and I checked the "Plain Text" option and I still get the dialog box
that says

"TextEdid does not save files in Simple text format,
document will be saved in rich text format with a
new name."

No joy on being able to open, edit and save a Entourage document

aRKay
 
J

Jolly Roger

I checked the "Plain Text" option and I still get the dialog box
that says

"TextEdid does not save files in Simple text format,
document will be saved in rich text format with a
new name."

No joy on being able to open, edit and save a Entourage document
Click to expand...

So stop using TextEdit and use TextWrangler, as I previously suggested.
 
M

Michelle

I did a little googling. Not sure if this is what you want, but try this.
Once you open it in TextEdit, go to the format menu and choose "make plain
text". That should allow you to save in plain text. I should have seen
that before, but I don't use TextEdit very often.
 
A

aRKay

Michelle,

I tried it but it will not overwrite the file. You have to give the file
a new filename just like the RTF. I think JR is correct. I need to
figure out how to get my saved ENT files to open with TextWranger
or something else. TextEdit has issues. Too bad there is no option
in Entourage for the format of saved messages.
 
J

Jolly Roger

I tried it but it will not overwrite the file. You have to give the file
a new filename just like the RTF. I think JR is correct. I need to
figure out how to get my saved ENT files to open with TextWranger
or something else. TextEdit has issues. Too bad there is no option
in Entourage for the format of saved messages.
Click to expand...

What's there to figure out? Just drag the message file over
TextWrangler's icon to open it.

And if you want to set the default application that will open a message
file to TextWrangler:

1. In the Finder, select one of the message files.
2. From the Finder menu bar, choose File > Get Info.
3. In the Info window, in the "Open with" section, set it to open with
TextWrangler.

To make it so *all* message files open in TextWrangler, click "Change All".
 
A

aRKay

Jolly Roger said:
What's there to figure out? Just drag the message file over
TextWrangler's icon to open it.

And if you want to set the default application that will open a message
file to TextWrangler:

1. In the Finder, select one of the message files.
2. From the Finder menu bar, choose File > Get Info.
3. In the Info window, in the "Open with" section, set it to open with
TextWrangler.

To make it so *all* message files open in TextWrangler, click "Change All".
Click to expand...

JR,

You were right on with the suggestion to use TextWranger. I tried it
with both TextWranger and Tex-Edit (that I have used for years) and they
both worked. The Apple TextEdit is pretty lame.

Too bad we cannot make a user preference in Entourage for the format of
the 'Saved' messages.

aRKay
 
M

Michelle

That's odd. Here's what I did--maybe I misunderstood
what you're trying to do.

Within Entourage--"Save as" the message you're wanting
to place into TextEdit. It saves it as a text document. I
opened it in Text Edit, went to format and chose "make
plain text", then saved. It does show it as an untitled document,
but I just clicked in original text document from Entourage
and it used that file name.

Although I did look back and saw that I now had two identical
versions. The one saved within TextEdit had the .txt tag
because I had that set in Preferences. I guess the problem
is that we can't seem to tell Entourage to add this extension
tag when we save, therefore when TextEdit saves, it can't
directly overwrite because the title isn't identical.

Oh, well. Good luck with Text Wrangler.
 
J

Jolly Roger

Thanks..... I wish we had the option in Entourage to save in some format
other than the lame TextEdit. I found and use Tex-Edit Plus and Text
Wrangler to workaround the issue
Click to expand...

Correction: The format Entourage saves the document as is "text" - not
TextEdit. The format of the file has nothing to do with TextEdit other
than that, coincidentally, TextEdit is the default application in Mac
OS X for opening text documents. I've explained to you how to change
the Mac OS X default application for text documents. In short, this is
not Microsoft Entourage's problem.
 
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