HomeMicrosoft Unveils Major Update for Notepad
Microsoft is introducing text formatting to its Windows Notepad application. This noteworthy Notepad update is currently accessible to Canary and Dev Channel testers on Windows 11, bringing bold and italic text styling, hyperlink support, and even Markdown functionality.
With this enhancement, Notepad now features a formatting toolbar located at the top of the application interface, positioned alongside the standard File, Edit, and View menus. This toolbar provides quick access to bold, italic, and hyperlink formatting, in addition to supporting list and heading creation.
Notepad now has a new text formatting toolbar for all of its new additions. Image: Microsoft"The experience incorporates Markdown style input and file handling for users who prefer working directly with this lightweight markup language," clarifies Dave Grochocki, principal product manager lead for Microsoft's Windows inbox applications. "You can toggle between formatted Markdown and Markdown syntax views through the view menu or by selecting the toggle button located in the status bar at the window's bottom."
Given Notepad's traditional association with plain text, users can effortlessly remove all formatting using either the formatting toolbar or the edit menu. For those who prefer the original minimalist approach, this new formatting capability can be entirely disabled within the Notepad application settings.
This formatting enhancement arrives just one week after Microsoft began testing an AI-powered text generation feature within the application. The innovative Write function in Notepad enables users to "quickly generate text based on provided prompts," and combined with these formatting options, Notepad is increasingly resembling Microsoft Word in its capabilities.
As noted in my Notepad newsletter earlier this week, it's remarkable that Microsoft left Notepad largely unchanged for decades, yet it has now evolved from a basic log file viewer to an application that can compose messages autonomously. Many of Notepad's recent features emerged following Microsoft's decision to remove WordPad from Windows after nearly thirty years of availability.
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Finally Notepad gets some love! It's about time they added basic formatting. I can see myself using this for quick notes, but honestly, for anything serious, I'd still jump to VS Code or another proper editor. Still, it's a welcome little upgrade for Windows 11. Wonder if they'll ever add spell check? 😄
Microsoft is introducing text formatting to its Windows Notepad application. This noteworthy Notepad update is currently accessible to Canary and Dev Channel testers on Windows 11, bringing bold and italic text styling, hyperlink support, and even Markdown functionality.
With this enhancement, Notepad now features a formatting toolbar located at the top of the application interface, positioned alongside the standard File, Edit, and View menus. This toolbar provides quick access to bold, italic, and hyperlink formatting, in addition to supporting list and heading creation.
"The experience incorporates Markdown style input and file handling for users who prefer working directly with this lightweight markup language," clarifies Dave Grochocki, principal product manager lead for Microsoft's Windows inbox applications. "You can toggle between formatted Markdown and Markdown syntax views through the view menu or by selecting the toggle button located in the status bar at the window's bottom."
Given Notepad's traditional association with plain text, users can effortlessly remove all formatting using either the formatting toolbar or the edit menu. For those who prefer the original minimalist approach, this new formatting capability can be entirely disabled within the Notepad application settings.
This formatting enhancement arrives just one week after Microsoft began testing an AI-powered text generation feature within the application. The innovative Write function in Notepad enables users to "quickly generate text based on provided prompts," and combined with these formatting options, Notepad is increasingly resembling Microsoft Word in its capabilities.
As noted in my Notepad newsletter earlier this week, it's remarkable that Microsoft left Notepad largely unchanged for decades, yet it has now evolved from a basic log file viewer to an application that can compose messages autonomously. Many of Notepad's recent features emerged following Microsoft's decision to remove WordPad from Windows after nearly thirty years of availability.
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Finally Notepad gets some love! It's about time they added basic formatting. I can see myself using this for quick notes, but honestly, for anything serious, I'd still jump to VS Code or another proper editor. Still, it's a welcome little upgrade for Windows 11. Wonder if they'll ever add spell check? 😄
