You can open multiple files, even with different language settings, and things work the way you'd expect it to.

Notepad++ does not come with Markdown defined, but helpfully, someone took care of that and released it, and setting that up is a snap.Īnother nice feature of Notepad++ that is lacking elsewhere is a tabbed interface. You can also define rules for new languages. Over 50 programming languages are built right in, and choosing one from the Language menu lets you turn on syntax highlighting, document maps, collapsible functions, autocomplete, and much more, depending on the language you choose. The real power of Notepad++ starts to show up when you want to edit code. If that's what you need it for, you're ready to go. The default mode is plain-text, UTF-8 encoded, with Windows line-feeds, and word wrapping turned on-normal Notepad defaults. If you're comfortable with Windows Notepad or WordPad, the Notepad++ interface will be very comfortable to you also. Installation is via a downloadable executable installer.

Notepad++ is licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL), and the source is available on GitHub. Special-purpose Markdown editors make life easier, certainly, but the quest for One Perfect Editor will not be denied!Įnter Notepad++. But I do a lot of development and writing on my Windows machine at home, and for several of the places that I submit writing, the best way to format the submission is with Markdown. My work machine is running OSX, and our development platform is CentOS, so for that work, Vim is usually my editor of choice. Different software development practices, different platforms, even the mindset of the user, can affect the right choice for that moment. The bitter truth that regular users of text editors must face, however, is that there just is no One Ring of text editing. It's become so much a part of technology culture that I've actually had the interview question ' Vim or GNU Emacs?' come up a couple of times in my career. I am far from the only person on a quest for the perfect text editor.

Best text editor for writing