The Power of Notepad

I have always told people that Notepad, the free Windows accessory that has been around since at least Windows 3.1, is my favorite word processing program. It’s great for jotting down ideas or using it as a basic ASCII text editor. Here are some tips on how to make it work for you.

First of all, if you have never used Notepad, it should be found in your Programs - Accessories Folder from your Start menu. However, I prefer to set a shortcut key so that I can open it in a moment from anywhere.

To set a shortcut key for Notepad (or any application), right-click on its icon and choose Properties. In the Shortcut key field, press any key you wish to use. I use N so that whenever I press Ctrl+Alt+N, my friend Notepad opens. Make sure you don’t use a keystroke combination that may use in some other program to prevent conflicts.

(Click to enlarge)

There is not much to the actual using of Notepad. There is no formatting and no spell check, so you are basically typing. There is a Find/Replace tool which can be handy though. You will most likely want to enable the Word Wrap feature found in the Format menu. This allows text to wrap within the window instead of the default option of extending infinitely off your screen.

Your basic shortcut keys work as expected, as shown next to their functions in the menus. One that is kind of unique to Notepad is the Time/Date stamp function. Using this from the Edit menu, or pressing the <F5> key, will insert the current date and time at the cursor position. This is a good feature if you are using a Notepad file as a diary, log, or place to quickly jot down ideas and you want to record when you do so.

There is actually an interesting way to enable a Notepad text file to insert a Time/Date stamp automatically at the end of your file whenever it is opened:

1. In your .TXT file, type .LOG on the first line and press <Enter> so that it is by itself. This must be typed in UPPERCASE letters to work.
2. Save your file.
3. The next time your file is opened, the current time and date will be place at the end of the file and you are ready to append your log.

I also like to add Notepad as a utility to easily open files that I am browsing. There are many ASCII files without a .TXT extension that could be edited using Notepad but are not associated with it. Instead of making many associations, I add Notepad to the “Send To” menu available when you right-click on a file. Then I can right-click on any file and choose Send To - Notepad to edit it.

1. Right-click on the Notepad icon in your Programs - Accessories folder and select Copy.
2. Open the Send To folder in your personal settings. It should be something like: C:\Documents and Settings\YourProfile\SendTo
   (You may need to “Show hidden files and folders” in your Folder Options settings to do this)
3. Edit - Paste to add the shortcut.

Now you can right-click on a file and send it to Notepad to be edited.

Add comment July 7th, 2006