Splyt is correct that you can change your TextEdit preferences so that by default you don't use smart quotes. There are other options for 'Macintosh line endings' and 'Unix line endings' that you can also activate. If I did this frequently, I would assign a shortcut that did not conflict with any other shortcuts I used, and simply do Command-a to select and then give the shortcut to convert all the line endings in my selection to Windows line endings. You can choose which of the 34 service menu options are enabled under the Services Shortcuts table (under System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts with 'Services' selected under the Shortcut categories, and by checking or unchecking the various options prefaced by 'WordService:' in the Services shortcuts table you can also optionally assign your own shortcut to these combinations).Īssuming that I wanted to convert an entire plain text file in TextEdit to the appropriate line endings for reading in Notepad under Windows, and I had the 'WordService: Windows Line Endings' option enabled, from TextEdit I would select all text with Command-a, vo m to the menu bar, right arrow to TextEdit, and move down to the Services submenu where I would select 'WordService:Windows line endings'. I think that most of the issues mentioned in this thread, including the original poster's problem that arises because Windows, Unix, and Macs all use different conventions for end-of-line characters in plain text files, may be most easily solved by downloading the free WordService package from this site:

How to get plain text editor mac