Help me find my dream text editor!
February 5, 2021 2:39 PM Subscribe
I do a lot of writing in Notepad. Which is fine. But I'd like a better way to edit txt files! Snowflake details below …
- I have Windows 10.
- I'd like "tabs", so that I can edit several different text files simultaneously and move between them easily.
- I'd like to program to look nice, so that it's a pleasure to use!
- I'd like the program to be fairly "light", so that it runs quickly and doesn't strain my computer.
- I'm not writing code, so I don't want particularly want syntax highlighting. I do sometimes use Markdown, however, so if the program understood Markdown, that would be a nice bonus.
Check out Atom: free, open source, lightweight, modern. Intensely extensible and multi-platform. Installs in a minute whenever you need it, happily works with markdown.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:00 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:00 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
Visual Studio Code. Everything you've asked for is built in. Many extensions for extra goodness. For many people, including me, it has rapidly become the de-facto free text editor on Windows.
posted by tayknight at 3:14 PM on February 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by tayknight at 3:14 PM on February 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
Seconding, Visual Studio Code!!!!
posted by gregr at 3:26 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by gregr at 3:26 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Seconding Notepad++ and though it does code well, I never code in it.
posted by soelo at 3:30 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by soelo at 3:30 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
Thirding Notepad++. Great for editing several text files at once, and can be modified with extensions.
posted by subocoyne at 3:31 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by subocoyne at 3:31 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Another vote for VSCode; I use the Markdown preview/renderer all the time.
posted by supercres at 3:35 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by supercres at 3:35 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have used Notepad++ for many years and it is quite a work horse. I'm not sure it "looks nice" but you be the judge. I am moving to Sublime Text 3 because it is more polished and because I'm a programmer so that's N/A for you. Joplin is a freeware version of Evernote and is where I do most of my Markdown work.
But to be clear, the other suggestions above are solid, I was just throwing a couple other thoughts out there FWIW.
posted by forthright at 3:38 PM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
But to be clear, the other suggestions above are solid, I was just throwing a couple other thoughts out there FWIW.
posted by forthright at 3:38 PM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Everyone, it seems, likes Notepad++. Me, I like NoteTab, because of its library of snippets, and it has pretty powerful programming features (that stay out of your way) in case you have that inclination.
posted by yclipse at 3:40 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by yclipse at 3:40 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have been using EditPad Pro for...15 years? Longer? I sometimes have to do a LOT of scrubbing on things like big csv files, and it barely even notices if I have 20 files open. It has a really good search/replace that I barely even use all the cool features on, and I do not think it is spying or otherwise data-mining me.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:45 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Lyn Never at 3:45 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm a fan of Sublime Text, especially for its tabs. Works well for both writing and code.
posted by danceswithlight at 3:53 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by danceswithlight at 3:53 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm a big fan of, and use almost daily, FocusWriter.
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 3:58 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 3:58 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Another vote here for Sublime Text. It’s superb.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:08 PM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:08 PM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Another Notepad++ person here, at least on Windows.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:23 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by kevinbelt at 4:23 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Notepad++ person checking in.
posted by kathrynm at 4:28 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by kathrynm at 4:28 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Another vote for Visual Studio Code VSC
I write and reformat a lot and script, code and markdown a little.
I've tried Notepad++(couldn't work out to strip leading whitespace), Sublime (slowish) and Atom (way too much lag).
I write reports and prose and a lot of label text for drawings, always pulling in text from elsewhere and needing to clean, reformat, strip html, change alignments, strip leading and trailing white-space. VSC does all of these for me quickly.
I also use a horrible spreadsheet program that lacks drag and drop, so I write whole columns of complete functions and drop them in my worksheet - saves hours a week.
Multi-cursor and multi-item select are awesome - i.e. select one string, and punch Ctrl F2 and you have the lot.
It also does nice simple tables (via markdown) that I also pdf.
Has a simple calculator, good enough for more than basics.
posted by unearthed at 5:00 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I write and reformat a lot and script, code and markdown a little.
I've tried Notepad++(couldn't work out to strip leading whitespace), Sublime (slowish) and Atom (way too much lag).
I write reports and prose and a lot of label text for drawings, always pulling in text from elsewhere and needing to clean, reformat, strip html, change alignments, strip leading and trailing white-space. VSC does all of these for me quickly.
I also use a horrible spreadsheet program that lacks drag and drop, so I write whole columns of complete functions and drop them in my worksheet - saves hours a week.
Multi-cursor and multi-item select are awesome - i.e. select one string, and punch Ctrl F2 and you have the lot.
It also does nice simple tables (via markdown) that I also pdf.
Has a simple calculator, good enough for more than basics.
posted by unearthed at 5:00 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I used Notepad++ and it's a good editor. I preferred VIM, but VIM was not allowed by my employer, for some reason. Notepad++ is available through the Windows App Store, so it's a (not as great as VIM) solution for your needs. N++ has it's quirks, but check out the "reg edit" option on Find and Replace. It's OK!
posted by SPrintF at 5:04 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 5:04 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Vim.
If you edit text, you should at least try learning it. It has a learning curve for sure, but once those commands are burned into your brain, you’ll never want to use anything else. Lightweight, runs anywhere, powerful beyond belief.
Download it and try the vimtutor command to get started. You’ll know by the end of the tutor if its for you or not.
posted by vitout at 6:46 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
If you edit text, you should at least try learning it. It has a learning curve for sure, but once those commands are burned into your brain, you’ll never want to use anything else. Lightweight, runs anywhere, powerful beyond belief.
Download it and try the vimtutor command to get started. You’ll know by the end of the tutor if its for you or not.
posted by vitout at 6:46 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sublime Text is probably one of the nicest feeling text editors. VSCode is a bit overkill (it's a full IDE for coding, really), and since it's an Electron app it's a bit heavier-weight than Sublime Text. In moderately resource-constrained situations Sublime really shines, and it never becomes unresponsive, whereas sometimes VSCode feels like it stutters a little, at least on my slightly ageing machine.
Notepad++ fills a similar niche as Sublime, it's just not as slick. I'd try both and see which you prefer. Sublime Text is shareware so there's occasional nags to buy a license.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:54 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Notepad++ fills a similar niche as Sublime, it's just not as slick. I'd try both and see which you prefer. Sublime Text is shareware so there's occasional nags to buy a license.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:54 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Standard recommendations for Windows are:
Notepad++ -- with a plug-in, it can handle Markdown, no problem. Quite configurable too
Visual Studio Code -- a freebie from MS, edits all kinds of source code, including TXT file, Markdown (MD), or anything else, easily split your window into horizontal or vertical slices, integrates directly with GitHub or other source control, integrates with compilers to become an IDE, connects to various extensions such as lexxers and whatnot to syntax check, autocomplete, and much more. There's little it can't do, that it may be too powerful.
Atom, Sublime Text, Brackets -- most of these are text editors that also works great with programming source code, and some even can open "live server" so any changes in HTML or MD will be rendered immediately.
Then there are the "no-distractions" editors like Nimble Writer, FocusWriter... No menu, no status bar, no toolbar, pretty much just lets you type.
posted by kschang at 7:59 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Notepad++ -- with a plug-in, it can handle Markdown, no problem. Quite configurable too
Visual Studio Code -- a freebie from MS, edits all kinds of source code, including TXT file, Markdown (MD), or anything else, easily split your window into horizontal or vertical slices, integrates directly with GitHub or other source control, integrates with compilers to become an IDE, connects to various extensions such as lexxers and whatnot to syntax check, autocomplete, and much more. There's little it can't do, that it may be too powerful.
Atom, Sublime Text, Brackets -- most of these are text editors that also works great with programming source code, and some even can open "live server" so any changes in HTML or MD will be rendered immediately.
Then there are the "no-distractions" editors like Nimble Writer, FocusWriter... No menu, no status bar, no toolbar, pretty much just lets you type.
posted by kschang at 7:59 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yet another vote for Visual Studio Code. Although I am a developer by trade, I don’t actually write code in it - but I do use it for gobs of Markdown documentation.
posted by cgg at 8:45 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by cgg at 8:45 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Atom and Visual Studio Code are a little heavier-weight than it sounds like you want. However, they are quite good and have tons of features.
Sublime Text is what I use for daily text editing tasks. To me, it is very snappy-feeling but also has a lot of customization options. I used to use Notepad++ too and Sublime feels like a modern replacement. If you decide to use it, check out the package control package for it.
posted by demiurge at 9:04 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sublime Text is what I use for daily text editing tasks. To me, it is very snappy-feeling but also has a lot of customization options. I used to use Notepad++ too and Sublime feels like a modern replacement. If you decide to use it, check out the package control package for it.
posted by demiurge at 9:04 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am now, and probably always will be, a text editor junkie, so I know whereof I speak. I use text editors to search and manipulate files at work, and have often used them for my own prose.
Notepad++ is likable, solid, free. It's the one I use most often at work. I like it because I often have to do column marking and the keyboard shortcut to do that is super intuitive to me. Also, it is the best at showing special characters, such as line endings (something other major editors seem to be surprisingly weak at). I dislike that word-wrapping is all or nothing, and can't be toggled on a per-tab basis (yes, it has very nice tabs). I think it does Markdown well, but to be honest I have never delved into its syntax highlighting capabilities.
Notepad++ is the one I keep coming back to. It's not the prettiest, doesn't have the most features, but it costs nothing, blessedly lacks a lot of modern features (no mini-map of the file, no JSON configuration files, relatively small array of plugins), and it's nice and fast.
VSCode is pretty and powerful, but I don't like it much (purely personal, I get why a lot of people do). I keep it around because of its delightful Rainbow CSV add-in, which makes it easy to work with comma- and other delimited text files. It also does tabs. Use it rarely enough that I always seem to open it right after an update (which come monthly, I think. Yes, that's an indication it's from Microsoft.)
Sublime Text is the only text editor I have paid money for. I find it difficult to keep its setup in sync between multiple machines, but it certainly is capable of doing just about everything you want an editor to do. Like VSCode, it has a wide and vast array of plugins.
Vim...well, that's a rabbit hole to go down. I've spent years learning it, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it. Above all else, Vim is the keyboard user's friend. You can input text in any text editor, but Vim excels when you have to manipulate that text: cut, paste, search, transform, all from the keyboard. It's like an alien artifact in this GUI world, created before mice. It's not so much a text editor as it is a grammar, a language for the massaging of text. If you are the baker, and words are the ingredients, Vim is a kitchen for cooking code and prose. It's not easy to learn, but even a moderate amount of knowledge is worth the gain.
Vim's tabs are iffy, though it has an array of ways to work with multiple open files. Unlike every other editor mentioned here, it works as both a GUI and a console (CMD-window) application, so it can be very, very fast.
Emacs is another ancient text editor, as idiosyncratic in its way as Vim. Honestly, I don't think it runs all that well in Windows. It's really a programming language kernel around which an editor has been built, as well as a web browser, a terminal, an email client, various games, a Vim work-alike (and an emulator of other editors as well).
posted by lhauser at 9:16 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
Notepad++ is likable, solid, free. It's the one I use most often at work. I like it because I often have to do column marking and the keyboard shortcut to do that is super intuitive to me. Also, it is the best at showing special characters, such as line endings (something other major editors seem to be surprisingly weak at). I dislike that word-wrapping is all or nothing, and can't be toggled on a per-tab basis (yes, it has very nice tabs). I think it does Markdown well, but to be honest I have never delved into its syntax highlighting capabilities.
Notepad++ is the one I keep coming back to. It's not the prettiest, doesn't have the most features, but it costs nothing, blessedly lacks a lot of modern features (no mini-map of the file, no JSON configuration files, relatively small array of plugins), and it's nice and fast.
VSCode is pretty and powerful, but I don't like it much (purely personal, I get why a lot of people do). I keep it around because of its delightful Rainbow CSV add-in, which makes it easy to work with comma- and other delimited text files. It also does tabs. Use it rarely enough that I always seem to open it right after an update (which come monthly, I think. Yes, that's an indication it's from Microsoft.)
Sublime Text is the only text editor I have paid money for. I find it difficult to keep its setup in sync between multiple machines, but it certainly is capable of doing just about everything you want an editor to do. Like VSCode, it has a wide and vast array of plugins.
Vim...well, that's a rabbit hole to go down. I've spent years learning it, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it. Above all else, Vim is the keyboard user's friend. You can input text in any text editor, but Vim excels when you have to manipulate that text: cut, paste, search, transform, all from the keyboard. It's like an alien artifact in this GUI world, created before mice. It's not so much a text editor as it is a grammar, a language for the massaging of text. If you are the baker, and words are the ingredients, Vim is a kitchen for cooking code and prose. It's not easy to learn, but even a moderate amount of knowledge is worth the gain.
Vim's tabs are iffy, though it has an array of ways to work with multiple open files. Unlike every other editor mentioned here, it works as both a GUI and a console (CMD-window) application, so it can be very, very fast.
Emacs is another ancient text editor, as idiosyncratic in its way as Vim. Honestly, I don't think it runs all that well in Windows. It's really a programming language kernel around which an editor has been built, as well as a web browser, a terminal, an email client, various games, a Vim work-alike (and an emulator of other editors as well).
posted by lhauser at 9:16 PM on February 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
nth Notepad++
posted by pompomtom at 9:16 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by pompomtom at 9:16 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
On the Markdown and nice interface front, I wonder if either Typora or Obsidian would fit your needs? They’re both very nice right out of the box, and you can set up adjustments for any particular needs.
posted by misspettigrew at 12:12 AM on February 6, 2021
posted by misspettigrew at 12:12 AM on February 6, 2021
Adding another VS Code user to the list. It's good, it's pretty, it works well, and it handles markdown (and pretty much anything else you want).
posted by vernondalhart at 7:38 AM on February 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by vernondalhart at 7:38 AM on February 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I write code for a living, but I also fill the role of "IT guy" so let me offer you this:
1) If you're not particularly technical, and can live with a little fugliness, Notepad++ is for you. It's what I tell my boss to use. It's what I use when all I want is a scratch buffer. It looks windows-y (not as pretty as, say, Atom) but it's just workmanlike, not horrid.
2) Since you mention markdown, it sounds like you want a little more than just a plain text editor. While Notepad++ might be enough, if you're working with a LOT of markdown you need to start tiptoeing toward the IDE end of the spectrum, you want something with a notion of project. For this I'd say you want Atom, I've used Sublime Text too and it's fine but I preferred Atom. YMMV. I think Notepad++ has a really lightweight notion of project (use a folder as a workspace) but I've never used it.
3) Past this point you're firmly in IDE territory, there are a lot of these and which ones you choose to consider depends heavily on what you're doing. Anyhow, I doubt you're in this camp because of the phrasing of this question.
posted by axiom at 8:43 AM on February 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
1) If you're not particularly technical, and can live with a little fugliness, Notepad++ is for you. It's what I tell my boss to use. It's what I use when all I want is a scratch buffer. It looks windows-y (not as pretty as, say, Atom) but it's just workmanlike, not horrid.
2) Since you mention markdown, it sounds like you want a little more than just a plain text editor. While Notepad++ might be enough, if you're working with a LOT of markdown you need to start tiptoeing toward the IDE end of the spectrum, you want something with a notion of project. For this I'd say you want Atom, I've used Sublime Text too and it's fine but I preferred Atom. YMMV. I think Notepad++ has a really lightweight notion of project (use a folder as a workspace) but I've never used it.
3) Past this point you're firmly in IDE territory, there are a lot of these and which ones you choose to consider depends heavily on what you're doing. Anyhow, I doubt you're in this camp because of the phrasing of this question.
posted by axiom at 8:43 AM on February 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Here's a very different suggestion: check out Obsidian. It has everything you're asking for and more (but if you don't need the "more," it's still a really cool text editor.
posted by nosila at 1:04 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by nosila at 1:04 PM on February 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Wow -- I have so many thoughtful answers! Thank you to everyone who replied.
I'm looking forward to trying these. I'm going to start with NoteTab, because I like the fact that it's a clipboard manager as well as a text editor.
posted by HoraceH at 3:21 PM on February 6, 2021
I'm looking forward to trying these. I'm going to start with NoteTab, because I like the fact that it's a clipboard manager as well as a text editor.
posted by HoraceH at 3:21 PM on February 6, 2021
I personally like Notepad++, but I mostly came by to mention that you might find Notepad Replacer useful if you want to more comprehensively change your default notepad program to something else in Windows, no matter what you pick.
posted by Aleyn at 4:18 PM on February 6, 2021
posted by Aleyn at 4:18 PM on February 6, 2021
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posted by dismas at 2:59 PM on February 5, 2021 [10 favorites]