# Change Format settings in CotEditor on Mac

Use Format settings in CotEditor to set the default format for documents such as line ending type and text encoding, and to manage syntaxes.

To change these settings in the CotEditor app on your Mac, choose CotEditor > Settings, then click Format.

Option | Description
--- | ---
Default line endings | Select the line ending style used when creating a new document. This setting is used also when the opened document doesn’t include any line endings. See Handle various types of line endings for details.
Default encoding | Select the text encoding used when creating a new document.
Priority of encodings | The priority of encodings and the policy of encoding detection when opening an existing file. Edit List Click the Edit List button to set the order of encodings that appear in the Text Encoding submenu in the Format menu and the Text Encoding menu on the status bar. This order is also used for encoding detection. CotEditor tries each encoding from the top of the list. See Change priorities of text encodings for details.
Refer to encoding declaration in document | The encoding declaration written in the document is respected when detecting the text encoding of the document. See Use encoding declarations for encoding detection for details.
Default syntax | Select the syntax used when creating a new document.
Available syntaxes | The list of the existing syntaxes. A small dot in front of syntax names represents that it is customized. See Define a syntax for editing syntax definitions. Add +, Remove - Create a new syntax or remove the selected syntax. The syntaxes bundled with CotEditor can not be removed. Edit (pencil icon) Edit the selected syntax. Action pop-up menu Duplicate “[syntax name]”: Duplicate the selected syntax to make your own one. Export “[syntax name]”: Export the syntax definition file made from the selected syntax. You can use this exported file to use it on another computer. To use the exported file, do Import. Share: Share the syntax definition file made from the selected syntax. Import: This allows you to use a syntax created on another computer. After selecting Import, choose the exported syntax file to install. Show File Mapping Conflicts: Inspect if multiple syntaxes are associated with the same extension/filename. This command is not available if no conflict exists.

## See also

- Handle various types of line endings
- Change priorities of text encodings
- Define a syntax
- Map files to syntaxes
- Change settings