Page 593 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Notepad

Notepad (in your Windows Accessories folder) is a bargain-basement text
editor, which means it lets you open, create, and edit files that contain plain,
unformatted text, like the ReadMe.txt files that often accompany new

programs. You can also use Notepad to write short notes or to edit text you
intend to paste into your email program after editing it. Notepad has had
some enhancements in recent Windows updates, but it’s still not exactly

Microsoft Word.

Notepad basics

Notepad opens automatically when you double-click text files (those with
the file extension .txt). You can also find it by typing notep in the search

box (“The Taskbar Search Box”).

You’ll quickly discover that Notepad is the world’s most frill-free
application. Its list of limitations is almost longer than its list of features.

Above all, Notepad is a text processor, not a word processor. That means
you can’t use any formatting at all—no bold, italic, centered text, and so on.
That’s not necessarily bad news, however. The beauty of text files is that

any word processor on any kind of computer—Windows, Mac, Unix,
whatever—can open plain text files like the ones Notepad creates.

Note

In fact, Notepad now handles more kinds of text files—like those created on a Mac or Linux
machine—without scrambling them upon opening. In the status bar at the bottom of the window,
Notepad shows you which line-break formatting scheme it’s currently using: Unix (LF), Mac
(CR), or Windows (CRLF).

Word wrap

When you first open a text file or paste text, Notepad may not wrap lines of

text to make everything fit in its window. As a result, chunks of text may go
on forever in a single line or get chopped off by the right side of the