You can create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on iOS. It’s not the easiest device to do any of that but if you’re in a pinch, you can. There are a lot of apps available for just this purpose including Apple’s, Google’s, and Microsoft’s respective productivity suite of apps. These apps can save files locally or you can upload them to a cloud drive. Up until iOS 10, these documents lived in isolation however, the Files app in iOS 11 lets you access them from a single app. It also makes it much easier to create and edit TXT files on iOS.
You of course need an app to create and edit TXT files on iOS. You can go with just about any run of the mill app however, Textor is a better choice. It integrates exceptionally well with the Files app and you’re almost fooled into thinking it’s part of iOS.
TXT Files On iOS
Install Textor on your iPhone or iPad. The app requires iOS 11, or later. Open the app and you’ll be presented with the Files app’s UI. You will see Textor at the top in purple. Tap the plus button to create a new TXT file. By default, the file is saved to iCloud but you can move it to other cloud drives. The app doesn’t have its own local, device storage. The files are named ‘Untitled’ by default but you can rename them if you know your way around the Files app. Just tap on the file and from the floating bar, select Rename.
You can use Textor to access TXT files saved to your Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, and Droopbox account. The problem with iCloud is that not many people use it to save files. If you have files saved online, you likely use one of the other popular cloud drives and save space in iCloud for photos and a backup of your iOS device.
Textor could have existed on older versions of iOS but it would have been closed off. Moving files between drives, or accessing them all from one place wasn’t going to be possible, at least not without going through the Share menu, generating share links, and downloading or creating multiple copies of the file. For something as simple as creating and editing a TXT file, that’s a lot of work. TXT files are a basic file type that’s used for a lot of things, including writing basic scripts. It shouldn’t be too complicated to edit these files on any platform.
