Text Editor

Blender has a Text Editor among its editor types, accessible via the Editor type menu, or the shortcut Shift-F11.

Header

The newly opened Text editor is empty, with a very simple header. More options become available when a text file is created or opened.

Text header.

Text header with a text loaded.

Editor type

The standard editor selection button.

Menus

Editors Menus.

Text

A data-block menu to select a text or to create a new one. After that the header will change.

Show

The following three buttons toggle display options: line numbers, word-wrap text and syntax highlighting.

Run Script / Script Node Update

Executes the text as a Python script Alt-P. See Script and Templates.

Register

Registers the current text data-block as a module on loading (the text name must end with .py). Read more about the registration of Python modules in API documentation.

Menus

View

Bottom of File

Moves the view and cursor to the end of the text.

Top of File

Moves the view and cursor to the start of the text.

Text

Create Text Block

Creates a new internal text.

Open Text Block

Loads a text, a File Browser appears Alt-O.

Reload

Reopens (reloads) the current buffer (all non-saved modifications are lost) Alt-R.

Save

Saves an already open file Alt-S.

Save As

Saves unsaved text as a text file, a File Browser appears Shift-Ctrl-Alt-S.

Make Internal

Stores the text inside the blend-file.

Run Script

Executes the text as a Python script Alt-P. See Script and Templates.

Edit

Cut Ctrl-X

Cuts out the marked text into the text clipboard.

Copy Ctrl-C

Copies the marked text into the text clipboard.

Paste Ctrl-V

Pastes the text from the clipboard at the cursor location in the Text editor.

Duplicate Line Ctrl-D

Duplicates the current line.

Move line(s) up Shift-Ctrl-Up

Swaps the current/selected line(s) with the above.

Move line(s) down Shift-Ctrl-Down

Swaps the current/selected line(s) with the below.

Select

Select Line, Select All.

Jump

Shows the Jump pop-up, which lets you select a line number where to jump to.

Find…

Shows the Find panel in the Sidebar region.

Text Auto Complete Ctrl-Spacebar

Shows a selectable list of words already used in the text.

Text To 3D Object

One Object, One Object per line.

Format

Indent

Indents the selection Tab.

Unindent

Un-indents the selection Shift-Tab.

Comment

Turns the selected lines into a Python comment.

Uncomment

Uncomments the selected lines.

Convert Whitespace

Converts between tab or space indentation.

Template

See Script and Templates.

Python, OpenShading Language

Script and Templates

The most notable keystroke is Alt-P which makes the content of the buffer being parsed by the internal Python interpreter built into Blender. Before going on it is worth noticing that Blender comes with a fully functional Python interpreter built-in, and with a lots of Blender-specific modules, as described in the Scripting & Extending Blender section.

The Text Editor has now also some dedicated Python scripts, which add some useful writing tools, like a class/function/variable browser, completion… You can access them through the Template menu in the header.

Footer

The Text editor is special in the fact that it contains a footer UI region. This footer displays if the text is saved internal or external and if there are unsaved changes to an external file. For external files, this region also displays the file path to the text file.

Main View

Typing on the keyboard produces text in the text buffer. As usual, pressing, dragging and releasing LMB selects text.

Tip

Usages for the Text editor

The Text editor is handy also when you want to share your blend-files with others. The Text editor can be used to write in a README text explaining the contents of your blend-file. Be sure to keep it visible when saving!