Notepad and Wordpad that comes with default Windows OS is not good enough. It is very basic and lacks some serious functionality. However there are tons of free text editors available in the market, which has more functionality than some of the commercial text editors.
In this article, let us review the Top 5 Free Text Editors for Windows OS.
1. Notepad++
Notepad++ is an open source text editor that does excellent job — both as notepad replacement and as full blown source code editor. Following are some key highlights.
- Multi-Tab and Multi-View
- Drag and Drop support to open and move documents
- Syntax highlighting for several languages
- Auto completion of functions and code blocks
- Bookmark a location within the document
- Macro – Record and play repeated operations.
- Search and replace using regular expressions
- Lot more additional features using plugins
- Our Rating:
- Download NoteTab++
- Home Page
- Fast and stable with tons of features. Excellent for both notepad replacement and full source code editor
- OS: All flavors of Windows including Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows 2000, Windows XP
- Open Source. GPL License
2. NoteTab Lite
NoteTab lite is a good free text editor that offers all the standard features that you might expect in a text editor. Using NoteTab, you can create a paste board file which will save all your clipboard copy automatically. This helps in retrieving the clipboard copy other than the last one.
- Our Rating:
- Download NoteTab Lite
- Home Page
- Offers all standard text editor features for daily use
- single-level undo only
- OS: All flavors of Windows including Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows 2000, Windows XP
3. Notepad2
If you hate default windows Notepad, you’ll love this Notepad2. This has all the features you wish Microsoft had in their default notepad. It is very light-weight with just a single executable.
- Our Rating:
- Download Notepad2
- Home Page
- Light-weight with just one executable. Excellent replacement for default notepad
- No tabbed interface
- OS: Windows NT, XP, Vista, 2003
4. Editpad Lite
This is an excellent textpad editor, which would’ve easily taken our #2 spot. Since it is only for personal use and not for commercial purpose, this has come down to #4 spot. This has the tabbed interface and has multi-level undo facility.
- Our Rating:
- Download EditPad Lite
- Home Page
- Multi-level undo feature
- Only for personal use. Not for professional use
- OS: Windows NT, XP, Vista, 2003
5. Jedit
Jedit offers a wide selection of features with it’s plugins. This is an awesome source code editor that has tabbed interface, syntax highlighting, diff, macro recording and everything a programmer would ever need. If I consider only the features, this would’ve easily taken the #1 spot. However, this is heavy-weight and it takes some time to startup.
- Our Rating:
- Download Jedit
- Home Page
- The best editor for programmers with loads of features
- Heavy-weight and take a while to launch
- OS: Written in Java, so it runs on Mac OS X, OS/2, Unix, VMS and Windows
- Open Source
Vote for your favorite editor
If you use any of the editor from our top 5 list, vote for your favorite editor. If your favorite editor is not in the list, choose other from this poll and leave a comment and let us know what is your favorite editor.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Used notepad++ in the past. Now a days, I am back to notepad and wordpad though both are bad. Should try the other options
Notepad++ is the best text editor for windows from the OSS world. The name should have been “Notepad+=100″ !!! because it is 100 times better than plain old notepad. It also supports a million language syntax. Its the best.
Notepad++ also adds a shell extension of “open with Notepad++” during installation so that its possible to open any file without changing its properties. This is a good feature. Also, there’s an option of “viewing all characters” which displays Newlines and Carriage returns as NL and CR. This is useful to identify which OS created that file.