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Over the years I've gone through a number of Notepad replacement text editors with various pros and cons. Always looking to improve on my current choice (which for clarity is Notepad++)

So a question to the floor:

What do you think is the best notepad replacement and why? What features do you like? What do you wish was different?

[EDIT]

Marking the most upvoted suggestion as the accepted answer by "popular opinion".

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Are you asking for a Text Editor to replace Windows? In that case Emacs is the only choice. – Jared Updike Jul 17 '09 at 4:04
@Jared Updike - emacs is a bad notepad replacement. Too long to start. And that is the first requirement I ask of a notepad replacement editor. Otherwise, it's a fine piece of software. – ldigas Jul 17 '09 at 12:34
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No no, it can replace windows. – Nifle Jul 17 '09 at 16:26
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@Nifle: actually, I think they might need to add more bugs and remove some of the documentation before it can replace Windows ;-P – SamB Jun 1 '10 at 22:28
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22 Answers

up vote 64 down vote accepted

Notepad++ indeed. It is the best. I also like the simple portable SciTE, based on the same Scintilla platform

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+1 Notepad++ is great. I've used it for quite some time now and it never disappointed me. – Albic Jul 15 '09 at 11:03
It's ok, after all it's free, just don't try loading very large files (100MB+) into it. – Ash Jul 15 '09 at 14:46
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Notepad++ with XML Tools is the only good xml viewer/editor/formatter I have seen – Jon Erickson Jul 17 '09 at 17:40
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I'm a Vi/Vim user and have been for ~18 years. I used Notepad++ for awhile on Windows, but recently switched back to using Vim there too. Notepad++ is good for those who haven't learned how Vi works, but I encourage you to take the plunge and learn Vi. – jtimberman Aug 1 '09 at 2:06
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Or am I thinking of TextPad? – Chris Thompson Aug 1 '09 at 5:54
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up vote 33 down vote

www.vim.org. Join us. It's a way of life.

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It doesn't start instantaneously, though. That's why I still use Notepad2 for some things. – Tomas Sedovic Jul 15 '09 at 11:17
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Actually, I find vim opens up pretty much instantaneously for me. Perhaps @Tomas is opening big files? – RedBlueThing Jul 15 '09 at 11:33
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"People who use Vim or Emacs are like the last surviving veterans of an ancient war. They're still fighting bitterly years after the war drew to a close, without realizing that both sides actually lost." – ChristianLinnell Jul 17 '09 at 0:46
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I choose not to think of myself as a bitter, misguided veteran of an imaginary editor war. Vim is nice, I like it. – RedBlueThing Jul 17 '09 at 3:06
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15 years of vi muscle memory cannot be stopped! See this blog post (and linked posts) for ways to get more out of Vim on any platform: weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008/11/17/vim-follow-up – jtimberman Jul 17 '09 at 18:30
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up vote 19 down vote

Notepad2

Without a doubt the best replacement for notepad on my machine. Except for tabs, it supports everything else! It's lightweight and perfect.

I recently found out how to replace notepad.exe with Notepad2.exe without modifying any operating system files. Taken from this link:

Replacing Windows Notepad with Notepad2

Replacing Windows Notepad with Notepad2 can be a little tricky since notepad.exe is a protected system file, which makes a direct replacement a bit difficult (though not impossible).

There is an easier way to replace Windows Notepad by using the "Image File Execution Options" registry key to trick Windows into running notepad2.exe whenever notepad.exe is run. This same trick is used by the "Replace Task Manager" function in Microsoft's Process Explorer. The benefit to using this method to replace Notepad is that you will not run afoul of Windows File Protection (since you are not actually replacing the executable itself), and you can undo it at any time by simply deleting the registry key. The downside to this method is that it does not work properly with the official Notepad2 build; there are a few minor changes that need to be made to Notepad2 in order for this to work (see my img_exec_replace patch).

In order to use this method of Notepad replacement, you will need to follow these steps:

  1. Obtain a build of Notepad2 that supports this form of Notepad replacement.
  2. Create the following registry key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\notepad.exe.
  3. Inside the key, create a new string (REG_SZ) value, named "Debugger".
  4. Set the data of this new "Debugger" value to the full path to the Notepad2 executable, followed by the /z switch. For example, "C:\Windows\Notepad2.exe" /z
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And it's even better if you replace notepad.exe so you always get notepad2. See links for XP and Vista here: lifehacker.com/378524/replace-notepad-with-notepad2 – dwj Jul 17 '09 at 16:32
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There's a much better way of replacing notepad.exe with Notepad2 that doesn't require replacing system files! See the bottom of this page: code.kliu.org/misc/notepad2 – hmemcpy Jul 17 '09 at 16:45
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up vote 14 down vote

TextPad

from www.textpad.com

Lots of support for custom syntax highlighting, regular expressions etc..

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Sorry, no offence, bit I think TextPad sucks. – Lakshman Prasad Jul 15 '09 at 11:06
*but (in the place of bit) – Lakshman Prasad Jul 15 '09 at 11:07
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Textpad 4.7 was the best text editor for years, but development seemed to stall. They're on 5.2 or something now but it's fallen way behind other editors. – DisgruntledGoat Jul 17 '09 at 18:25
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Honestly, ANYTHING is better than Notepad/Wordpad, so whatever you use, it is an improvement. – geoffc Jul 20 '09 at 12:35
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Killer feature - cut/copy/delete bookmarked lines; not supported by the other popular editors mentioned here. – SDX2000 Oct 6 '09 at 9:05
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up vote 11 down vote

Most powerful? Emacs. By far. But then that begs the question whether power is really what you're after. :-)

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Agreed. Emacs is wicked powerful. However, I don't know if I'd recommend it to new users, particularly windows users -- I'm not knocking windows or its users, it's just coming from a different mindset. It's got a little too much arcane history built into it. That all said, I use emacs and have been for nearly 20 years. – Doug Harris Jul 17 '09 at 4:00
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Takes too long to start for a notepad replacement editor. Otherwise, a fine piece, by any criteria, of software – ldigas Jul 17 '09 at 12:35
@ldigas - You'd be surprised at how fast a minimally configured emacs can be. – Jason Baker Jul 17 '09 at 15:18
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@ldigas - Run it in server mode, associate file extensions to emacsclient and/or add emacsclient to your Send To menu and you'll get instant start-up as long as emacs is already running. If you are in and out of files all day, leaving emacs running is an acceptable condition. – dwj Jul 17 '09 at 16:30
@dwj - I know that. But then we're not speaking "notepad replacements" anymore, are we. Visual Studio also works fast when running all the time, but I wouldn't use it instead of notepad. – ldigas Aug 9 '09 at 18:04
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up vote 7 down vote

There is also E Text Editor, which is based upon, and has bundle compatibility with, the amazing TextMate.

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I use TextMate on Mac OS X, and love it. I'm pretty sure E adds some additional features too. – jtbandes Jul 17 '09 at 3:53
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eTextEditor - a very nice editor, but two flaws: depends on cygwin, and with every new version there are annoying bugs which you actually notice while working (for example, find in project in one of the newest versions) – ldigas Jul 17 '09 at 12:37
+1 Idigas - I love the program, but development seems to be sporadic and the quality can be iffy. – Dan Walker Jul 17 '09 at 16:55
@Idigas E does not require Cygwin, it's the Textmate bundles that need it, which is why it gets installed by default. You can remove it if you like, but then most of the bundles will stop working. And besides, why is its use of Cygwin a flaw? I see no problem with Cygwin myself. – Charles Roper Jul 21 '09 at 7:05
@Charles Roper - When you're developing command line apps, which depend on system commands, it can turn into a hell with \, /, file naming and such ... not to get into much detail, I would prefer it to be self contained. It doesn't require Cygwin, it just needs Cygwin for full functionality (therefore, requiring it). – ldigas Aug 9 '09 at 11:54
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up vote 5 down vote

ULTRAEDIT!!

I just found this editor recently and I'm very pleased with it. Its a bit pricey, but it is a fantastic editor.

Browse filesystem at left, double click to open code file at right.. it is like an IDE, only its .. not as heavy as Visual Studio (or Eclipse!) and is great for quick edits to files you need to quickly upload to the web.

Other thing is it has a companion tool "UltraCompare" which can be used to compare files pretty easily through some menu option built into UltraEdit.

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The column mode (block edit) is invaluable; activate with keyboard shortcut ALT+C. Bookmarks (set by Ctrl+F2, go to by F2) are very useful for navigating around in your large text files. – Peter Mortensen Aug 1 '09 at 7:47
+1 for all caps and two exclamation points. If it didn't have "ultra" in the name these things just would have been inappropriate. – donut Feb 8 '10 at 11:24
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up vote 5 down vote

Either VIM, Intype or Notepad++. Intype supports TextMate-like bundles and cool colour schemes (not compatible), has snippet support. Notepad++ does just about everything with its plugin architecture, and VIM is VIM. I love HJKL. And best of all, they're all free!

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+1 for InType. I love it. – Jonathan Sampson Jul 17 '09 at 0:48
@Jonathan Sampson - same here, but they really need to get some basic options in it (undo for example). Apart from that, looks like it has potential to become another textmate alternative. – ldigas Jul 17 '09 at 12:38
Love the look of it. – ldigas Jul 17 '09 at 12:39
@Idigas - they do have undo. – person-b Jul 17 '09 at 18:48
Everything Notepad has, definitely. – person-b Jul 17 '09 at 18:48
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up vote 3 down vote

When I was doing this search, my criteria weren't the feature count or number of buttons in the toolbar -- I've got gVIM and Visual Studio for that already.

So, I wanted something very similar to Notepad, only being awesome instead of crap. And, unlike vim, something that starts almost before you run it :-).

Thus, Notepad2.

It starts in a heartbeat and you can make it look almost like the original Notepad.

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I'm a vimmer, but I agree with you. Vim is not the best "notepad-replacement". It is the best "text editor", but that's an entirely different matter :) – R. Martinho Fernandes Jul 15 '09 at 11:05
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@Tomas: are you certain that your config is not the culprit? gvim (on windows right now) opens instantly, and I do have some settings (indentation, syntax for a few languages) loaded. Aren't you loading something that's taking a toll on performance? – Adriano Varoli Piazza Jul 17 '09 at 17:07
Adriano: this is on several computers with gVim out of the box. I'm not saying it's Firefox-like slow, but it does take about a second to start. And that pains me for the come-and-go things I keep using Notepad for. Agree with Martinho -- vim is the best "text editor". – Tomas Sedovic Jul 18 '09 at 15:36
My vim starts pretty slow as well, but it is because of all the plugins and configuration that I do in my vimrc. – Seamus Mar 9 '10 at 17:11
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up vote 3 down vote

Vim, certainly... But Emacs shoud work too.

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up vote 2 down vote

When I was a Windows user I really enjoyed PSPad.

It provides syntax highlighting, templates, it works as FTP Client and it is super lightweight compared to other solutions.

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+1 for PSPAD. More people should use this tool IMO. – barfoon Jul 17 '09 at 17:57
I actually went and installed this on my desktop and notepad++ on my laptop. Within a week i was scrambling to get this off. – RCIX Jul 20 '09 at 4:18
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up vote 2 down vote

Komodo edit is my favorite. Built in Vi keybindings, edit over ftp/ssh, awesome macros and extensibility makes it just fantastic.

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Nice, but very slow to start up in comparison with other editors. – Umber Ferrule Nov 4 '09 at 15:31
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This is very true. The startup time is practically abysmal, but since I leave it open all the time, opening a document in a new tab is pretty much instantaneous. – moshen Nov 9 '09 at 18:54
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up vote 1 down vote

I always liked the SciTE or Scintilla text editor..

Pretty lightweight, and it has colors depending on the language..

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up vote 1 down vote

Intype, because it is the closest to textmate in functionality and feel. http://intype.info/public/releases/unstable.rss

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Actually one might assert that sublime text editor now is closest to TextMate sublimetext.com – user2499 Jul 17 '09 at 16:02
I will check it out. – FortunateDuke Jul 17 '09 at 20:20
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up vote 1 down vote

I use notepad++. Its simple and works with just about every .nfo

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.nfo is just a text file, every editor can read those... – DisgruntledGoat Jul 17 '09 at 18:30
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up vote 1 down vote

Sublime text editor. It's like Textmate, except it is arguably even closer to TextMate (or perhaps even surpass) compared to the other two (more publicized) textmate-for-windows apps "intype" or "e".

http://www.sublimetext.com/

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up vote 0 down vote

On Linux I use KATE. Brilliant syntax highlighting, sessions, document selector (way better than tabs), very good code commenting from shortcuts (a big NP++ failing) and loads more I don't remember OTOH.

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up vote 0 down vote

Crimson Editor. It's kind of old but pretty snappy, and comes with plenty of features. I used it for the longest time before switching to Notepad++ and it was pretty nice.

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up vote 0 down vote

I've recently become a fan of HippoEDIT. It isn't free, but it is fast and has all of the programmer-friendly features (e.g. syntax highlighting, indention indicators, brace/parenthesis matching).

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up vote 0 down vote

I really like the afore mentioned TextPad, and used UltraEdit a long time ago!

But I have since moved to SlickEdit for most things. It starts fast for me, but is quite a bit heavier than Notepad++ or other "light weight" editors.

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up vote 0 down vote

Like folks have mentioned before, I like Notepad++ and Vim for code editing text editors, but for a Notepad replacement for editing plain text files I use ConTEXT. Because of its simplicity it makes for a great Notepad replacement - does a great job on column-aligned text files, has regex search and replace - everything I need in a plain text editor.

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