Microsoft continues to add new features to the Windows Notepad, today announcing a preview release with built-in spellchecking and an autocorrect feature.
Windows Notepad languished without new features for years while more modern text editors, like Notepad2 and Notepad++, were developed and released.
Suddenly, in May 2018, Microsoft announced that they were adding Unix and Mac compatibility by adding support for Unix & Mac EOL characters.
Since then, we have seen a constant stream of new modern features, including wrap-around searches, text zoom, search autofill, line numbers when using word wrap, improved UTF-8 support, Notepad tabs, and a character counter.
All of these features are considered standard in a text editor, yet for some reason it took years for the Windows Notepad to finally receive them.
Notepad gets spellcheck and autocorrect
Today, Microsoft has announced that they are testing a new version of the Windows Notepad that includes new spellchecking and autocorrect features.
Microsoft says they are rolling out this preview to Insiders in the Windows 11 Canary and Dev channels, but it may take some time before it's available for everyone.
"With this update, Notepad will now highlight misspelled words and provide suggestions so that you can easily identify and correct mistakes," reads Microsoft's announcement.
"We are also introducing autocorrect which seamlessly fixes common typing mistakes as you type."
Once installed, Notepad will now show a red squiggly line under misspelled words that, when clicked, shows suggestions on the correct spelling.
It's also possible to ignore words in a single text document or add them to the global dictionary so they are not shown in the future.
Microsoft says that this feature will be turned off for log and source code files. This is because it's common for non-standard words to be used in these files, triggering multiple spellcheck errors.
Users can control this setting globally or for specific file types in the Notepad app's settings.
The autocorrect feature is a bit more seamless, automatically making small changes to grammar and punctuation as you type.
Comments
0Willy - 1 month ago
... because we need things to be more complex and bloated.
doncoyote - 1 month ago
I liked the balance between Wordpad and Notepad on a Windows machine. Always knew which one to reach for. Changes for the sake of change.
ZeroYourHero - 1 month ago
Maybe Microsoft should do it right and acquire Notepad ++. Let their current developers stay employed.
electrolite - 1 month ago
Completely useless features to add to notepad. A better feature to add would have been to have some history for the undo function. That would be much more useful without worrying about being unable to restore the original content without having to close without saving and opening it again.
Nobody is writing their thesis paper in notepad, Microsoft already has a bloated app called Word for that purpose.
ZeroYourHero - 1 month ago
Bleeping Computer should allow up & down votes on comments.
0Willy - 1 month ago
I vote your post down.
Does it make you feel good that someone thought about your post (or not) and voted it down (possibly arbitrarily) or that non-thinkers voted it up, just to follow the mob? Votes are meaningless.
powdermnky007 - 1 month ago
who hurt you?
Gumblebop - 1 month ago
The whole point in notepad is that is is basic. We don't want your 'features' - add them to Wordpad if you must.
NoneRain - 1 month ago
Contrary to others here, I welcome all the new features Notepad is receiving (:
tech_engineer - 1 month ago
M$: Please leave notepad alone. I need an app to launch instantly without having to become MS Word alternative.