[gustav]

Is it possible, when printing a document from TextEdit, to have the pages automatically numbered? For example, is there a "Services" script that will do this?

Also, is there any way to add simple headers and footers to an RTF or PDF document created in TextEdit?

From what I can tell, these things are not possible -- which is a source of great frustration to writers (like me) who would love to use a simple OSX app as a substitute for bulky, feature-laden, and usually Panther-unfriendly word processors.

This limitation seems also to affect apps that depend on OSX text tools, such as DEVONnote, Hog Bay Notebook, and VoodooPad. These are all very appealing little programs -- as is TextEdit itself -- but it becomes frustrating to use them when one cannot print simple documents with ordinary features like headers and page numbering.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

[Krypton]

You won't find any of these features in TextEdit - as the name suggests, it is purely for editing text.

Maybe try Mellel, a good Cocoa word processor.

[gustav]

You know, I like Mellel, but in a way it provides a perfect illustration of the problem I have with word processors in general.

My needs are quite simple. My needs were, in fact, met perfectly well by MacWrite 1.0. When WriteNow came along in the late 80's, I figured I was set for life.

Today nothing seems quite right. Maybe I've just gotten used to Panther. But I sort of expect these days that applications will look and act more or less the same way, and that they will share tools like the spelling dictionary.

Mellel is eccentric. It implements ordinary features (like page numbering) in quite an odd way. It does a thousand things that I don't need -- no simple writer of book manuscripts needs them -- which makes it kind of hard to put my finger on the little features I do need. And it looks weird on my screen, with all that shiny metal where I expect to see, metaphorically speaking, a sheet of paper.

All I need really is something to produce double-spaced manuscripts with headers and page numbering and one-inch margins. Also, it would seem that such a rudimentary app ought to integrate easily into the whole OSX environment -- so that, for instance, if I've already told the spell checker once to learn the word "Leuchtenburg," the new app will not flag it, and countless other words, as misspelled.

The best thing I've found so far is DEVONthink, which also does a thousand things I don't need -- but you can hide those, and you can access the simple necessary functions via the standard OSX ruler and other simple commands that are where you expect to find them. DT 1.8 does not yet support page formatting. This is expected to be added within the next few weeks to 1.9. I trust it will be in place by the time I need to print my book.

[JKT]

I haven't tried it at all since it became Nisus Writer Express but perhaps this is what you are looking for. I had a go (a few years back now) with the beta programme that eventually became Nisus and at that time it was precisely what you are looking for now - a simple WP with header/footer and page numbering capability.

Edit: There is also a preview of the next release.