Continuing the theme of minor interface annoyances, one of the unique features of Mathematica as a text editor is the automatic adjustment of text location as you type. This could be a bit disorienting...Any way to make it stop?

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I interpret this question differently: you want an Input cell that does not reflow text such than manual line breaks and indentation are preserved.

This is the behavior of the built-in Code cell style, but that by default comes with baggage such as making the cell an Initialization Cell and a gray background. It also turns off all auto-spacing, meaning that an expression like a = 2 + 2 is rendered as a=2+2 unless you manually space it out. An alternative is to create your own cell style or modify the Input style using custom Style Sheets.

As an example open a new Notebook, then Format > Edit Stylesheet... and paste this at the bottom of the file:

Cell[StyleData["ManualInput", StyleDefinitions -> StyleData["Input"]],
PageWidth -> Infinity,
CellHorizontalScrolling -> True,
PageBreakWithin -> False,
GroupPageBreakWithin -> False,
LineBreakWithin -> False,
AutoIndent -> False,
]


If asked to "Interpret text" click Yes.

Now close the Style Sheet and create a new Cell with Style ManualInput using the Format > Style menu. This gives you a cell you can paste code into without it reflowing, or manually indent your code. If you want to use this style in place of the default Input you could use the code above but replace StyleData["ManualInput", StyleDefinitions -> StyleData["Input"]] with StyleData["Input"]. If you want to always use this style you can save this Style Sheet and then point Mathematica to it as the default:

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Sorry for being a bit vague, but you did interpret my question correctly. I find it disorienting to have to keep looking for the code I am writing while I am writing it. This solves the issue, thanks! –  Moshe Oct 14 '12 at 19:17

If you mean InputAutoReplacements in text cells you can switch these off in the options inspector.

But this means doing it every time you want to switch it off best to add it to your stylesheet programmatically:

SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[],
StyleDefinitions ->
Notebook[{Cell[StyleData[StyleDefinitions -> "Default.nb"]],
Cell[StyleData["Text"], InputAutoReplacements -> {}]},
StyleDefinitions -> "PrivateStylesheetFormatting.nb"]]


Or evaluating this:

CreateDocument[
Notebook[{Cell[StyleData[StyleDefinitions -> "Default.nb"]],
Cell[StyleData["Text"], InputAutoReplacements -> {}]},
StyleDefinitions -> "PrivateStylesheetFormatting.nb"]]


... and installing this change as a new stylesheet. If that is not what you mean by "automatic adjustment of text location" can you explain/clarify/expand?

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I think this refers to what I had in mind. How do I switch it off in input cells? –  Moshe Oct 13 '12 at 22:17
replace StyleData["Text"] with StyleData["Input"] –  Mike Honeychurch Oct 13 '12 at 22:22
Excellent, I will try that, thanks! –  Moshe Oct 13 '12 at 22:23