Notepad
Overview
Text editor
A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....
for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It has been included in all versions of Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
since Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0 is a 16-bit graphical operating environment, developed by Microsoft and released on 20 November 1985. It was Microsoft's first attempt to implement a multi-tasking graphical user interface-based operating environment on the PC platform. Windows 1.0 was the first version of Windows...
in 1985.
Notepad is a common text-only (plain text
Plain text
In computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text....
) editor. The resulting files—typically saved with the .txt
Text file
A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...
extension—have no format tags or styles, making the program suitable for editing system files that are to be used in a DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
environment.
Notepad supports both left-to-right and right-to-left based languages, and one can alternate between these viewing formats by using the right or left Ctrl+Shift keys to go to right-to-left format or left-to-right format, respectively.
Unlike WordPad
WordPad
WordPad is a basic word processor that is included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 upwards. It is more advanced than Notepad but simpler than Microsoft Works Word Processor and Microsoft Word. It replaced Microsoft Write....
, Notepad does not treat newline
Newline
In computing, a newline, also known as a line break or end-of-line marker, is a special character or sequence of characters signifying the end of a line of text. The name comes from the fact that the next character after the newline will appear on a new line—that is, on the next line below the...
s in Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
- or Mac
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
-style text files correctly.
Early versions of Notepad offered only the most basic functions, such as finding text.
Unanswered Questions
