Text files (or .txt files) are useful files that contain plain, unformatted text. And if you ever want to create a new .txt file on your Chromebook, you’re in luck. Because that’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do in this article.
Prefer to watch a video about how to create a text file on a Chromebook? Click here.
Before we begin, I’d just like to point out that a .txt file is a very basic file that contains only unformatted plain text. And if you want to create a file with nicer looking formatted text on a Chromebook, I would recommend something like Google Docs. But if you do want to create a .txt file, let’s proceed with the tutorial.
How To Create A TXT file On A Chromebook
Chrome OS comes with a built in app for creating, saving, opening, and editing .txt files. So to create a text on your Chromebook, you’ll just need to open an app called “Text” which should already be preinstalled on your Chromebook.
So just click on the circle in the bottom left hand corner to view all your apps…
And you should find the “Text” app somewhere in here.
Now you’ll be in the “Text” app, and if you’ve never used the text app before, it will automatically create a new .txt file for you, and you’ll be ready to start typing!
However, if you’ve opened a different .txt file on your Chromebook in the past, it would have opened in the Text app, and now whenever you open the Text app you’ll just be looking at that old file.
But don’t worry, if this happens, just click “New” at the top of the left hand menu and it will create a new blank .txt file just like it would if you opened the app for the first time.
But once you’ve got a blank text file like this, you’re ready to type whatever you want in it.
How To Save The TXT File
Once you’ve typed your text into your new text file, all that’s left to do is save it. In the future, when you’re saving changes to an existing text file, you’ll do that by clicking the “Save” button. But, when you’re saving a brand new text file like this one, you’ll need to click “Save As” instead.
Now, a files window will appear, and you’ll need to name your .txt file, and choose a location for it.
By default, the name of the text file will be whatever you typed in the first line of the file, which in my case is “Hello”. If you’re happy with that name, you don’t have to change it, but if you do want to give the file a propper name, you can do that here.
(Just make sure you leave .txt on the end of it so that your computer knows it’s a .txt file).
And you can also choose where you want the file to be saved. I’m just going to save mine in the “My files” folder to keep things simple, but if you wanted to save your file in Google Drive, or perhaps in a specific folder inside the “My Files” folder, you could do that now by double clicking the folder you want to save it in.
But, once you’re happy with both the file name and the location, you can go ahead and click the “Save” button and your .txt file will be saved!
Now that your .txt file is saved, you can safely close the Text app if you want to. And if you open the files app and open the folder where you saved your .txt file, you will see it somewhere there!
How To Open The TXT File
Now that you’ve created your text file, if you want to open it in the future, you’ll just need to find it in the files app in the folder you saved it to, and double click on it…
And the file will open up in the Text app.
Just remember, if you make any changes to the file while it’s open, you’ll need to click “Save” before you close the Text app to save the changes.
And because you clicked the “Save” button instead of “Save As”, you won’t have to choose the name and location or anything, it will just update the existing file with the new changes.
And that’s all there is to creating and using text files on a Chromebook! But if you want more Chromebook tutorials, you’ll find them all here.
