Just as with NotePpad on the PC, there's a bit of a trick to getting TextEdit to save HTML files properly, and it's all to do with the filename extension.
Yes, we're now deep into the 21st Century, but computer operating systems still basically work like early DOS machines: If you have the wrong filename extension, either your OS itself won't understand it or your Web browser will be convinced that even though it looks like HTML inside it's really just plain text to show as-is.
Sheesh.
In TextEdit, you'll type in some HTML and have a window that looks like this:
This is not good because the program wants to work with Rich Text Format, not plain text (the ruler is the giveaway). To fix that, go to Format --> Make Plain Text and, voila! It'll look like this:
Much better!
Now, almost done (and you only have to go through this once: once the file is properly named, TextEdit will remember for future edit sessions). Choose File --> Save As... and type in a filename that includes a ".html" filename extension:
Looks good. Click on "OK", though, and now you get this:
Click on "Use .html" and, finally, you're done!
Yes, it's a bit of a pain, but, as I said, you only have to do this once, when you first save the file, and from then on, it'll work transparently.
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A more permanent fix would be to enter TextEdit's Preferences. Inside the "Saving" area (near the bottom-right) there's an option that's checked by default, which you'd probably want to toggle:
� Append ''.txt'' extension to plain text files
Uncheck that, and you shouldn't have this problem anymore.