You likely know about the TextEdit app on your Mac. This built-in tool lets you create and edit plain or rich text documents easily. But what you may not know is that you can also annotate images right within it.
This is handy for rich text documents when you don’t want to use a word processing app and just need your document, that includes an image, quickly. And best of all, you’ll use the same Markup tool you’re used to on your Mac.
Here’s how to insert and annotate images in TextEdit on your Mac.
Insert your image into TextEdit
Remember, you have to use a rich text document if you want to insert an image into TextEdit. If you’re using plain text, click Format > Make Rich Text from the menu bar.
Then, you can insert an image a few different ways:
- Right-click in the body of the document, select Import Image from the shortcut menu, and choose your image.
- Click Edit > Attach Files and browse for your image.
- Drag an image from its current location into the TextEdit document.
Annotate an image in TextEdit
Now that you have your image in your TextEdit document, annotating it is easy.
Select the image in your document and you’ll see an arrow on the top right of it. Choose Markup (or a different image editing tool if you prefer).
Your image will open in the Markup window where you can edit and annotate is as you please.
If you’ve never used Markup on your Mac, it offers some great tools. Check out the toolbar and you’ll see buttons to sketch, draw, highlight, sign, add shapes and text, include a border, rotate or crop your image.
When you finish, click Done and your edited image will display in your TextEdit document.
Wrapping it up
Being able to mark up images right from TextEdit makes it easy for quick edits like signing a document, cropping an image, or adding some text.
And remember, you can use the Markup tool on Mac for email attachments. Plus, if you enable the extension you can use Markup for other Mac apps too.
Do you have any tips to share for using TextEdit on Mac? Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on Twitter!