Most text editors, including TextEdit, wrap long lines at the right edge of the editing window. When you write in a text editor, however, things are different. In Word, and most other “real” word processors, regardless of how wide or narrow you make your editing window, your lines will continue to wrap at the exact same point-and that point is dictated by the printed page’s margin settings, not the width of the onscreen window. The distinction may seem a fine one, but I think it’s relevant here. The first thing to realize is that TextEdit is not Microsoft Word, nor any other pure word processor.
(If you just want the fix without the explanation, skip down to Machine?” (Nevermind for now that nothing is truly WYSIWYG that’s a topic for another day.) Well, the answer is that your Mac is trying to give you WYSIWYG, and that’s the cause of the problem. You might be thinking, “I thought the Mac was supposed to be a Printing from TextEdit sometimes seems like a black art-often the font size of your printed document will be much smaller than the font size used in the onscreen original.
