

However, text editors do offer features like autocompletion and error detection to help you write code better and faster. They also require you to write and edit code instead of dragging and dropping elements on the page. Text editors, on the other hand, do not show what your website will look like on the front end. For example, HubSpot's free CMS includes a drag-and-drop builder.

WYSIWYG editors may be a standalone tool, or come integrated with your web host or CMS. This type of editor will often have a drag-and-drop interface so you can add, delete, and modify headings, images, and other elements on the page without writing or editing a single line of code. WYSIWYG HTML editors are great for beginner coders because they display what the website will look like on the front end to your visitors. You know how marketers use blogging tools like Grammarly and Hemingway to spell check their posts and improve their readability? Developers use similar tools - known as code editors - to help them write and improve their code. There are two types of HTML editors: WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") editors and text editors. Let’s get started.Īn HTML code editor is a type of software that web developers use to create and edit HTML code so they can build web applications faster and easier. Then, we'll look at code editors that range in functionality, price, and purpose so you can pick the one that best suits your experience, budget, and business. That is to say, TextEdit is reading the HTML tags for the text as well as the CSS formatting for those tags and showing you the resulting formatted page.Below, we’ll cover what a code editor is and key features you can expect. If you try to open an HTML file inside of TextEdit as is, you will see that TextEdit is actually rendering out the file as it would look inside a web browser. While TextEdit is mainly meant to get you up and running with being able to write basic text, with just a few changes to the preferences you can turn TextEdit into a basic HTML editor, and you don't need to invest any more than you already have on your Mac.

Like the name suggests, TextEdit is a basic text editor that ships with your Mac as part of the bundled apps, along with Safari, the iLife Suite, and many more.

Let's have a look at how you can set up TextEdit to be a basic HTML editor. Luckily, OS X comes with with a great HTML editor built in. You may be a bit apprehensive to spend money on a coding app if you're brand new to HTML and are still getting your feet wet. If, like me, you are starting to get into HTML and web design, you may feel a bit lost when it comes to choosing an HTML editor.
