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Notepad (software)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Notepad
A component of Microsoft Windows
Notepad.png
W8Notepad.png
Notepad on Windows 8
Details
Type
Text editor
Included with All Microsoft Windows versions
Related components
WordPad
Notepad is a simple text editor for Microsoft Windows. It has been included in a
ll versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 1.0 in 1985.
Contents [hide]
1 Features
2 Unicode detections
3 Competing software
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Features[edit]
Notepad is a common text-only (plain text) editor. The resulting files typically s
aved with the .txt extension have no format tags or styles, making the program sui
table for editing system files to use in a DOS environment and, occasionally, so
urce code for later compilation or execution, usually through a command prompt.
Notepad supports both left-to-right and right-to-left based languages. Unlike Wo
rdPad, Notepad does not treat newlines in Unix- or Mac-style text files correctl
y. Notepad offers only the most basic text manipulation functions, such as findi
ng text. Only newer versions of Windows include an updated version of Notepad wi
th a search and replace function. However it has much less functionality in comp
arison to full-scale editors.
Microsoft's first Notepad version predates Windows. They included it in a set of
utilities they bundled with the Microsoft Mouse as early as 1983.[1] Like subse
quent versions, it was a plain text editor that used the mouse for menu navigati
on and text manipulation. However, unlike its Windows successors, it was a DOS p
rogram limited to full-screen operation.
In all versions of Windows, Notepad uses a built-in window class named EDIT. Old
er versions included with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows 3.1, im
posed a 64 K limit on file size, which an operating system limit of the EDIT cla
ss.
Up to Windows 95, Fixedsys was the only available display font for Notepad. Wind
ows NT 4.0 and 98 introduced the ability to change this font. As of Windows 2000
, the default font was changed to Lucida Console. The font setting, however, onl
y affects how the text is shown to the user and how it is printed, not how the f
ile is saved to disk. The default font was changed to Consolas on Windows 8.
Up to Windows Me, there were almost no keyboard shortcuts and no line-counting f
eature. Starting with Windows 2000, shortcuts for common tasks like new, open an
d save were added, as well as a status-bar with a line counter (available only w
hen word-wrap is disabled).

In the Windows NT-based versions of Windows, Notepad can edit traditional 8-bit
text files as well as Unicode text files (both UTF-8 and UTF-16, and in case of
UTF-16, both little-endian and big-endian).
Notepad also has a simple built-in logging function. Each time a file that start
s with .LOG is opened, the program inserts a text timestamp on the last line of
the file.[2][3]
Notepad accepts text from the Windows clipboard. When clipboard data with multip
le formats is pasted into Notepad, the program only accepts text in the CF_TEXT
format.[4] This is useful for stripping embedded font type and style codes from
formatted text, such as when copying text from a web page and pasting into an em
ail message or other WYSIWYG text editor. Formatted text can be temporarily past
ed into Notepad, and then immediately copied again in stripped format to paste i
nto the other program.
Notepad can print files, but doesn't print correctly if Word Wrap is turned on.
Headers, footers, and margins can be set and adjusted when preparing to print a
file under Page Setup. The date, file name, and other information can be placed
in the headers and footers with various codes consisting of an ampersand ('&') f
ollowed by a letter.
Unicode detections[edit]
Main article: Bush hid the facts
The Windows NT version of Notepad, installed by default on Windows 2000 and Wind
ows XP, has the ability to detect Unicode files even when they are missing a byt
e order mark. To do this, it utilizes a Windows API function called IsTextUnicod
e().[5][6] However, this function is imperfect, incorrectly identifying some all
-lowercase ASCII text as UTF-16. As a result, Notepad interprets a file containi
ng a phrase like "aaaa aaa aaa aaaaa" ("4-3-3-5") as two-byte-encoded Unicode te
xt file and attempts to display it as such. If a font with support for Chinese i
s installed, nine Chinese characters (?????????) display. Otherwise, it displays
squares instead of Chinese characters.
Some people misinterpreted this issue for an easter egg. Many phrases that fit t
he pattern (including "this app can break" and "bush hid the facts") appeared on
the web as hoaxes. Windows expert Raymond Chen correctly attributed it to the U
nicode detection algorithm.[7] This issue was resolved in Windows Vista and newe
r versions of Notepad.
Competing software[edit]
Notepad does not require a lock on the file it opens, so it can open files alrea
dy opened by other processes, users, or computers, whereas WordPad cannot. Also,
since Notepad lacks advanced formatting functionality, many people find its sim
ple interface faster and easier to use for basic text operations. The MS-DOS Edi
tor, especially as updated in Windows 95, where it became an MDI application, al
so provides many features never offered by Notepad.
There are many third-party replacements for Notepad with additional functionalit
y, including both free software (e.g. Notepad++ and Notepad2) and freeware (e.g.
TED Notepad).
Notepad lacks many features available in other text editors, such as Unix-format
newlines, syntax coloring, code folding, regular expressions, macros, block-sel
ect, and MDI, and lacks full support for line wrapping.
See also[edit]
Portal icon
Microsoft portal
WordPad
Notepad++

Comparison of text editors

List of text editors
Microsoft Windows
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Microsoft Mouse article at toastytech.com
Jump up ^ Features of LOG and Time/Date Command in Notepad
Jump up ^ How to Use Notepad to Create a Log File
Jump up ^ "The Clipboard". Retrieved September 29, 2009.
Jump up ^ IsTextUnicode() at MSDN.microsoft.com URL last accessed July 3, 2006.
Jump up ^ IsTextUnicode() at MSDN2.microsoft.com
Jump up ^ The Notepad file encoding problem, redux
External links[edit]
Notepad in Windows XP Product Documentation at Microsoft.com
Notepad FAQ in Windows Vista documentation at Microsoft.com
[hide] v t e
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Notepad is a Windows application. To most people, it is a simple word processing
application but to programmers it turns into something like a lifesaver. How I
can say that kind of thing? No particular reason. Do your own reasearch, lazyass
!