Recap: Since Home windows 11 launched in 2021, Notepad has obtained a number of the most vital updates in its 42-year historical past. Whereas the plaintext editor has historically served as a light-weight different to Microsoft Phrase for coding and easy note-taking, latest additions are making it more and more resemble a standard phrase processor.
Home windows Insiders can now entry a formatting toolbar in Notepad to use textual content styling. This function is at present obtainable within the Canary and Dev channels, and previous replace patterns counsel it is going to ultimately roll out to all Home windows 11 customers.
Insiders can apply daring, italic, and Markdown-style formatting to tell apart common textual content from headers. Notepad additionally now helps hyperlinks and bullet-point lists.
A toggle button within the standing bar on the backside of the window permits customers to modify between formatted Markdown and uncooked Markdown syntax. Moreover, customers preferring conventional plaintext enhancing can fully disable formatting within the settings menu.
Formatting is barely the newest of a collection of updates Notepad has obtained over the previous few years. The app, considered one of Microsoft’s oldest, underwent comparatively little change for the reason that launch of Home windows 95 three a long time in the past, however obtained a brand new person interface and assist for darkish mode in 2021. Browser-style tabs have been launched in 2022, adopted by spellcheck and autocorrect in 2023. The addition of generative AI-based textual content enhancing late final yr was probably probably the most important and controversial function so far.
Why Microsoft is now including phrase processing options to its plaintext editor stays unclear. Nevertheless, inspecting related apps might supply perception into the corporate’s technique.
Different editors like Chic Textual content, Visible Studio Code, and Notepad++ have lengthy provided a richer function set than Notepad, so the latest updates is perhaps a response to the competitors. Nevertheless, the latest deprecation of WordPad could possibly be one other issue.
Launched alongside Home windows 95, WordPad provided a built-in wealthy textual content editor for customers unwilling to pay for a full Microsoft Workplace license. It stuffed a center floor between Phrase and Notepad. Microsoft might now be shifting a few of WordPad’s performance to Notepad to fill that hole.
Nonetheless, Home windows customers haven’t any scarcity of free textual content enhancing choices at this time. Cloud-based options like Google Docs and iCloud Pages allow syncing throughout a number of units with out requiring a subscription, in contrast to Microsoft 365. In the meantime, FreeOffice and LibreOffice present absolutely offline performance and carefully resemble Microsoft Workplace.
Microsoft additionally continues to supply a non-subscription model of Workplace, which is regularly discounted. The newest limited-time deal gives Microsoft Workplace Professional 2021 for simply $49, a 70% low cost.
