Notepad has been a feature of the Windows operating system for decades, and Notepad has remained virtually unchanged for most of that time. It's simple, reliable, and one of my favorite programs. Recent updates have changed this and I've started using something completely different.
The notebook has been cute and simple for years
Notepad has been a simple and reliable text editor for decades. This made it ideal for editing small configuration files for games or other programs, quickly writing small batch scripts, or any other activity that does not require complex editing tools.
Plus, because Notepad was exceptionally simple, you could be sure that it wouldn't accidentally mess up the formatting of the file you were editing. The formatting may seem like nothing more than white space to you, but depending on the program in question, there may actually be invisible characters inserted throughout. Even if the formatting is only done by inserting extra spaces or tabs, the code is often sensitive to such things, and configuration files can be sensitive too.
This is why simple programs like Notepad outperform many others. powerful word processors such as Microsoft Word, for editing text files and writing things like batch scripts.
What went wrong with Notepad?
Since the introduction of Windows 11, Notepad has constantly received a series of updates that expand its capabilities with new features. The most inexplicable of them all updates are Copilot integration. This allows you to use a large “artificial intelligence” language model directly in Notepad.
Notepad also gains the ability to handle Markdown formatting, which is a popular way to apply formatting to text and documents. If you've ever added bold or italics to a message on Discord or WhatsApp, you've used a limited form of Markdown.
Notepad has also got tabswhich isn't particularly egregious, but seems out of place.
As Notepad gains new features, it strays further and further from what made it a reliable little app that everyone uses from time to time into something completely different: a more fully featured text editor.
The only problem? There's already a fantastic full-featured text editor available for years that's better than Microsoft's “improved” Notepad. Considering that Microsoft is now positioning Notepad to be inferior to its competitors, I've abandoned it entirely.
Notepad++ is everything Microsoft's new Notepad wants to be
Notepad++which has been around for over 20 years, is a more advanced text editor with many useful features. Remarkably, the entire program feels light and responsive, despite the many additional features.
I can't list all the minor improvements Notepad++ offers, but here are a few of my favorites.
Macros
If you've ever had to repeat one action more than a few times on PC, you understand how tedious it can be. Notepad+ allows you to create your own macros that will automatically repeat a programmed action when you press a button, which can save you a huge amount of time and frustration if you apply it correctly in the right settings.
The most common times I've used it are when I have to configure multiple game files in the same way, but it doesn't stop there.
Advanced Find and Replace
Regular search and replace is quite limited. You enter a word or phrase, the app finds it, and then you can usually replace it with another word or phrase.
Notepad++ takes this to the next level by allowing you use regular expressions (regex) to format search and replace arguments. Regular expressions give you much more granular control over how search and replace works.
For example, if you want to replace “oo” with “a”, but only if “oo” follows an R or a B and is followed by a T, you can do so. So you do a search and replace, ignoring the words “book”, “rook” or “soot”, but changing the root and load to “rat” and “bat” respectively.
Regex may seem a little intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes incredibly powerful.
Great plugins
Unlike Notepad, Notepad++ supports a huge number of plugins (hundreds) that do everything from making minor visual changes to Notepad++ to providing entirely new features. Alternatively, if you are particularly motivated, you can also write and release your own plugin for the community to use.
Notepad has long been a Windows staple, but in an attempt to make it more feature-rich, Microsoft has cut back on much of what made it appealing in the first place.
Instead of using Microsoft's half-hearted update to Notepad, I decided to replace it entirely with something that was originally designed to be what Microsoft is trying to turn Notepad into.
