With so many great open source programs on the market, it’s pretty normal for people to use third party text editors, photo editors, etc. instead of the default programs installed on Windows.
Jul 19, 2019 Then go to Open with. You’ll see a lot of options on this menu. Don’t select the app from here, it will only open the file in that app for once and won’t change the defaults. Click on Choose another app. Step-2: Now select the app that you want to open that file type, then check the box of Always use this app to open (file type) files. Jan 27, 2019 Apps need to be installed before you can set them as the default. You may want your.pdf files, or email, or music to automatically open using an app other than the one provided by Microsoft. To choose default apps by file type. Scroll down and select Choose default apps by file type.
For example, when I double-click on a TXT file, it always opens up in Notepad. That used to be OK, but now that I have installed Notepad++, an awesome text/code editor with tons more features, I would rather have all my text files open with Notepad++ instead of Windows Notepad.
So how can you change the default program for opening a particular file? Well, there are two ways to go about it. Note that these instructions are geared more towards Windows XP users.
Read this post if you want to change the default programs in Windows 7, 8 or Windows 10.
Method 1 – Use Open With Dialog
The easiest way to change the default launching program for a file type is to right-click on the file, click on Open With and click on Choose Program.
Now choose the program that you want to use to open files of this type. If it is not in the list, you can click the Browse button, navigate to the Program Files folder and click on the EXE file.
Once you choose the program, make sure to check the Always use the selected program to open this file box and then click OK.
That’s pretty much it! Now any time you click on a TXT file, it will open using the program you selected in the Open With dialog.
Method 2 – File Types Dialog
The second method is to open My Computer, go to Tools, and click on Folder Options.
Now click on the File Types tab and scroll down to the file type extension you want to change, in our example TXT.
Click on the Change button and the same dialog pops up like when you click Choose Program from the Open With menu. Go ahead and pick the program from the list and click OK.
You can do this for any file type on your computer, including pictures, sounds, videos, PDF documents, etc. I know that I prefer to use Foxit Reader over Adobe Reader any day because it’s so much faster.
Also, be sure to check out my list of other great freeware programs you may not know of. Enjoy!
Whenever you double click on any file on your Mac within the Finder, the operating system will by default find the most suitable app to open it and reveal its contents. Most of the time everything will work without issues, but there are other times when your Mac will either not use the ideal app to open a file or will simply not be able to find a suitable app at all.
If you have experienced this issue before and would like to know how to solve it, read along. What causes this issue most of the time is that you might have two or more apps that support the type of file that you want to open.
For Example: Some very frequent culprits of this are archiving apps like Winrar or UnRarX, both of which support very similar file types. Another common occurrence is mix-ups between video players like VLC and Quicktime, with the latter opening files only supported by the former.What you need to do in order to solve this issue is to change the default app for opening certain types of files, or at least choose a different app from the available ones to open a particular file. Follow these steps to learn how to do just that.
Open File with Different Program
Step 1: First, start by locating the file you want to open within the Finder.
Step 2: If you want to open the file with a different app than the one set by default only once, then all you have to do is right-click on the file, click on the Open With option and then select the app you want to use from the list of available programs.
Set Default Program for Specific File Types
Step 1: To set a different default app for all files of a certain type, you can also start by locating a file of that type first and then by right-clicking on it. This time though, locate the Get Info option and click on it.
Step 2: This will display the information panel for that particular file. On it, look for the Open with: section located almost at the bottom of the window. If it is not open, click on the small triangle until the information is displayed just like on the screenshot below.
Change Default Software To Open Files Mac Free
Step 3: There, you will see a dropdown menu that will display all of the apps that support the file and are capable of opening it. Click on this menu and then select the application that you want to use to open that file type from then on.
If you don’t find the app you are looking for on the list, simply click on Other… to look for one within the Applications folder.
Step 4: Once you select the application you want, click on the Change All… button to apply the changes. Then, confirm your selection on the next window.
Once you are done, just close the information panel and you will be set to go. From now on, every time you open any file of that type, it will open in the new application you selected.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#applications #How-to/Guides
Did You Know
Microsoft holds over 59,000 US and international patents.
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