Top 5 Best Free Notepad alternatives

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Notepad is the default text editor in Windows. It’s simple, light-weight and fast and most people use it as their main text editor because of its simplicity. But for some power users it might just not be enough. And if that is the case with you, then you’ll most likely need another text editor.

Fortunately, there are several free and feature-rich Notepad alternatives to choose from.

5 Best Notepad Alternatives

There are a number of free Notepad alternatives, however, here we’ll take a look at the 5 best Notepad alternatives.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is probably the most popular and most feature-rich text editor around, it is especially loved by programmers because it supports a wide array of programming languages including C, C++, C#, HTML, XML to name just a few. It also supports Syntax Highlighting, multi-editing, auto-completion e.t.c.

If you want Notepad with a bit of advanced functionality like Spell Check and Hyperlink functionality then you can use it out of the box, otherwise you can configure it according to your needs. Almost every single thing is customizable in Notepad++.

Some of the Notepad++ features are listed below.

You can download Notepad++ from here, they also have a portable version. Keep in mind that portable version does not allow automatic updates.

ElitePad Lite

ElitePad Lite is another free portable Notepad alternative, if you are intimidated by the interface of Notepad++ then this program is fro you. It does not have Syntax Highlighting or any other advanced functionality that is available in Notepad++, however, that isn’t really a bad thing if you’re not a coder. Some prominent features of ElitePad Lite are listed below.

  • Large file and long line support.
  • Full Unicode support, including complex scripts and right-to-left scripts.
  • Direct editing of text files using Windows, UNIX, and mac Mac text encodings (code pages) and line breaks.
  • Tabbed interface for working with many files.
  • Unlimited undo and redo for all open files, even after saving.
  • Automatic backup and working copies prevent data loss.
  • Powerful search-and-replace with literal search terms and regular expressions that can span multiple lines.

It has a simple interface and is quite customizable, perfect for those who want Notepad with features like multi-text editing, multiple undo/redo and autosave.

Notepad 2

Notepad 2 is also an open-source text editor, just like ElitePad Lite it features a simple interface and looks exactly like the original Notepad. It also features Syntax Highlighting for many web languages including but not limited to PHP, CSS, Java, SQL.

Some features of Notepad 2 are listed below.

Features

  - Syntax highlighting: HTML, XML, PHP, ASP (JS, VBS), CSS,
    JavaScript, VBScript, C/C++, C#, Resource Script, Makefiles, Java,
    Visual Basic, Pascal, Assembly, SQL, Perl, Python, Configuration
    Files, Apache Config Files, PowerShell, Batch Files, Diff Files
  - Drag & drop text editing inside and outside Notepad2
  - Basic regular expression search and replace
  - Useful word, line and block editing shortcuts
  - Rectangular selection (Alt+Mouse)
  - Brace matching, auto indent, long line marker, zoom functions
  - Support for Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files
  - Open shell links
  - Mostly adjustable

It very fast and allows lots of customizations, you can even make it look transparent. There are lot of modified version as well, you can download one of them from their site.

MetaPad

Metapad is an open-source basic text editor. It has a very simple interface and looks much like Notepad. It does not support Syntax Highlighting and other advanced functionality hence is not suitable for coders.

It provides lots of customizations, like the ability to change background and stuff. Some of the features of MetaPad are listed below.

  • Persistent window placement
  • Dirty file notification
  • Intelligent Find and Replace
  • External viewer support (e.g. web browser)
  • Usable accelerator keys (Ctrl+S, Ctrl+N, etc.)
  • Dual customizable font support
  • Optional Quick Exit (Esc key)
  • Configurable tab stop setting
  • Auto-indent mode
  • Go to Line/Column
  • Seamless UNIX text file support
  • Block indent and unindent (Tab, Shift+Tab)
  • Recent files list
  • No file size limit! (under Win9x)
  • Hyperlink support
  • Portability mode (INI mode)
  • Over 30 customized UI language plugins

AkelPad

AkelPad is an open source editor for plain text. It is very light and fast and is good Notepad replacement for those who don’t need more advanced features. Some of the features of AkelPad are listed below.

  • Single window (SDI), multi-window (MDI) and pseudo multi-window modes (PMDI);
  • Full support of Unicode strings on Unicode systems (NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/Seven);
  • Support of Unicode codepages (UTF-8, UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE);
  • Support of any codepage installed in the system;
  • Support of DOS/Windows, Unix and Mac newline formats;
  • Preview file open;
  • Correct pseudographics displaying;
  • Column text selection;
  • Multi-level undo;
  • Fast search/replace text strings;
  • Remember file codepage and caret position;
  • Printing of a document and print preview;
  • Support of language modules;
  • Plugins support (syntax highlighting, folding, auto-completion, scripts execution, keyboard macros and much more).

Even though AkelPad is a simple text editor, you can add more features to it by installing plugins. There are a lot of plugins available so that you can customize AkelPad to your liking.

Here are the 5 Best free Text Editors. If you use any other text editor or find another text editor better from the ones mentioned in this article then comment below.

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