back to article Windows Notepad gets spell check. Only took 41 years

As text editors go, Microsoft's Notepad has never been big on creature comforts. But after more than 41 years, Redmond has finally seen fit to bestow its humblest of utilities with spell check and auto-correct. The feature, live in at least version 11.2405.13.0 or later, appears to be rolling out to Windows 11 users now, after …

  1. PBuon

    Does anyone actually use Notepad rather than Notepad++?

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      1. The commentard formerly known as Mister_C Silver badge

        Both (*). Notepad for very simple text files, N++ for edits requiring format and/or syntax/command highlighting. Or the options for multi-file tabs. Weirdly enough, I find the tabs in M$ new Notepad awkward, especially when it reopens many many files. I suppose I taught myself "simple file, use Notepad; tricky file, use N++" and the new Notepad forces thinking about more than task-in-hand.

        (*) And Kate at home, where I get to choose the OS.

        1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

          N++ doesnt really syntax highlught... its just matching certain words and colouring them.

    2. hitmouse

      For all intents and purposes about 99.9999% of users.

    3. doublelayer Silver badge

      On my machines, no, I don't, or at least very rarely. On others' machines, yes, absolutely. When I'm helping someone fix something and I need a text editor, whether that's to edit a configuration file or just to store some notes about what I'm doing, they are unlikely to have Notepad++ installed in the first place and I'm not going to install it while I'm there. Even if they do have it, I'm not going to mess with their setup. So in those circumstances, Notepad gets used.

    4. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

      Yeah, often.

      It's real easy to spool up on a new build machine and copy/paste temp stuff into, lists of paths to map shares, temp passwords for newb users etc so they don't have to make 17 attempts at getting a 20 char series of random letters, numbers etc.

      But I install Notepad++ as soon as it's available on any techie user's machine.

      Spoolchuck will fuck it up.

      1. AMBxx Silver badge

        All those paths, share and passwords will be great when there's a spellchecker! I just hope it can be turned off globally in some domain policy.

    5. phuzz Silver badge

      We should run a sweepstake on how far into the comments the first comment about Notepad++ is on any article about Notepad.

      Don't get me wrong, I love NP++, but Notepad is just a text editor, NP++ is so much more.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Notepad spoiled me, edlin was a real text editor.

  2. hitmouse

    Several reasons

    1. You don't put high-value features into essentially freeware when you have premium offerings.

    2. Licensing. Microsoft and other OS vendors historically licensed this stuff from third parties for apps, not operating systems. In Microsoft's case, licensing lexicons and language tools for dozens of languages is amazingly expensive if done on a per-seat basis which is not always negotiable. Back in the day vendors sold these tools for thousands of dollars per language per user. Like Adobe not wanting PDF generation in Windows or Office, vendors didn't want their cash cows commodified.

  3. biddibiddibiddibiddi Bronze badge

    "Only took 41 years" implies these were features that we actually needed and people were asking for, neither of which is true. Notepad is no longer a minimalist text editor; it's now bloatware. On my Win10 system, notepad.exe is 196KB. On Win11, it's now 1590KB. EIGHT TIMES the size. Notepad performed perfectly for 40 years, doing exactly what was needed, and there was zero need for any of the recent changes. The only reason for putting some of these in is because they've eliminated WordPad, but that never had spellcheck or tabs either, and there was still plenty of reason for having different apps for different purposes.

    At least they didn't tie it into the primary Windows 11 spellcheck feature, forcing you to turn it off globally for all applications that use it when you just want one app to not use it.

    1. Bebu

      EIGHT TIMES the size.

      I vaguely recall when I was deluded enough to own a Windows SDK* (Win 2.x - Win 3.x) [[ghastly]] and a copy of the Zortech C++ V3 compiler [[nicer]] that amongst the SDK sample source code a notebook like application was mostly a small amount glue code for the frameworks in the SDK which I imagine were standard Windows DLLs.

      So I would think the notebook.exe would be mostly overhead such as run time (dynamic) linking info.

      Fortunately I quickly learnt the error of my ways and Microsoft and I parted brass rags.

      * A whole box of documentation in folders including the IBM CUA.

    2. I am the liquor

      67.5K on 32-bit Windows XP... not really sure why it was that big! All it did was stitch together a Win32 edit control, a menu and some common dialogs, all of which were built in to the OS.

      Charles Petzold's Programming Windows 3.1 had a sample program called poppad, functionally identical to Notepad, in about 25K of source code (raw Win-API C code, you had to hand-code your own message loop in those days), and under 15K when compiled.

    3. PRR Silver badge

      > On my Win10 system, notepad.exe is 196KB

      notepad.exe is 189kB on this Win7-64 machine.

      No EDLIN on this machine (no regret). No EDIT, ED, or TECO. I have a DOS editor under 8kB but can't find it today. UltraEdit's exe is 20Meg; and two huge DLL files near it. Going back to DOS: WordPerfect 5.1 main EXE is 8MB, couple overlay files swap over that space. Isn't a whole lot that newer NotePad does that WP51 wouldn't do in its own way.

  4. spold Silver badge

    Think woodness four cat is had oof glutton

  5. Sentar

    Yes I do NUT I thought Microsoft were discontinuing Notepad.

    Or have Microsoft forgotten what they are doing...

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      They are…

      There really isn’t a reason to have a generic language spell checker in Notepad, as if you need to be writing that much text, use WordPad or Works (going back a few years) or Word.

      This seems much like the start of a repeat of the Windows mail/outlook express/outlook desktop/outlook web … where MS will enhance products to the point where they now “compete” and so need to be rationalised by discontinuing products.

      So this is yet another example of MS making changes for the sake of change rather than because it is actually beneficial to the user.

    2. david 12 Silver badge

      I thought Microsoft were discontinuing Notepad

      Microsoft are discontinuing Wordpad.

      So now they are converting Notepad into Wordpad.

      Looks like silo's and political infighting to me.

  6. Yorick Hunt Silver badge
    Trollface

    Great for witches and warlocks...

    ... But what about those who want their spelling checked?

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Great for witches and warlocks...

      I, for one, am glad it only stops spells.

    2. ITMA Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Great for witches and warlocks...

      Whei wood I ned a speeling chucker? Argh yuu seying my triping is roobish?

      P.S. can it sell check Geordie?

  7. nolan

    the one program that I thought was sacred.

  8. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

    Watt a sham

    Oh dear, I hope they don't autocarrot or it'll wreck many a text file of network shares, URLs, scripts, temp passwords and all the other little uses it has when bringing up a new machine and/or user.

  9. steelpillow Silver badge

    so how soon before...

    ...when you hover over the spelling mistake, a dialog pops up over it so you cannot correct it but must be distracted by whatever crap is in the dialog, just like Outlook 365 does (and probably a shedload of other shit too).

    BTW, has multiple undo arrived yet? My work desktop copy still hasn't got it.

  10. Jakester

    Notepad-Absolutely

    Not only Notepad, but WordPad for setup documentation.

    Notepad because it used to not interfere with my spelling. I don't want Microsoft lackeys telling me that I mis-spelled a word that I want the way I typed it, much less change it.

    Wordpad because it was always available on a new Windows installation, enough formatting features to make meaningful setup documentation, including hyperlinks so that a system could be setup using the documentation before ever installing any software.

  11. Time Splicer
    Facepalm

    Who asked for these features?

    I thought the reason Notepad hasn't changed much was because it is supposed to be a very simple text editor which is very quick to load and doesn't use much memory.

  12. Alan Bourke

    It's a text editor

    WTF does it need spellcheck for ?

  13. X5-332960073452
    WTF?

    And who's stupid idea was it

    to default to 'open content from the previous session', rather than 'new window' ?

  14. TangoDelta72
    Facepalm

    Someone saw the future coming...

    ...and planned accordingly:

    https://win7games.com/#calc

    Scroll down for notepad.

    1. PRR Silver badge

      Re: Someone saw the future coming...

      > Scroll down for notepad.

      classic NotePad

      classic WordPad

      See also Classic Task Manager, Classic MSConfig, Classic Paint

  15. Grogan Silver badge

    I don't care about the red underlining type spell check where you can take action to correct it, if I choose not to ignore it. That can only be helpful even if it doesn't have an entire language with all its made up words and vernacular in its dictionaries.

    What I hate is spell checking that I have to fight against, that automatically corrects deliberately misspelled words (or auto-completes). I have to turn all that bollocks off on my phone.

    I'd have to say that would be pretty useless to me in a plain text editor, though. Every sequence of characters separated by spaces would likely be underlined in the type of file I'd be editing with Notepad on Windows. (script, .inf, .ini type configuration files etc.)

  16. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    Just look at the logo in the pic accompanying this article.

    Always wondered why MICROSOFT and GOOGLE didnt fight each other in court for copying each others logo colours. Not sure who was first but someone is clearly copying the other one... with the red blue, greena nd yellow colors.

  17. Martin-73 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    It's also functionally useless

    I got it inflicted on me on my laptop, and it was convinced aluminium was incorrectly spelled! No option to change dictionary language

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