Text editor d. Text editors

At first I wanted to make a review separately for each category of editors - as an alternative to notepad, MS Office, for editing codes and online, but still decided to collect everything in one article. It contains free editors as an alternative to the already familiar and standard notepad and MS word. As always, you can download them from the official site there and install them for yourself and try. Why pay for paid products when there are such alternatives, sometimes even better than paid analogues. In total, it turned out in the review not a lot, not a little, but 29 editors.

Free alternative editors to replace MS office

1) openoffice.org

I think it would be wise to put it first on the list, because it is the most popular today.
OpenOffice.org (OOo) is a free office suite designed to replace the well-known Microsoft Office suite of programs both at the format level and at the user interface level. With OpenOffice.org, you can easily upload MS-Office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), edit and store them both in their original format and in the OpenOffice.org format.
OpenOffice.org can be useful to anyone who needs a powerful program with high security, functionality, flexibility, and compatibility requirements for business, government, education, and the private sector. One of the useful features of the package is the ability to use it without installation, which allows you to run the program, for example, from a USB flash drive.

More detailed information is hidden under the spoiler. Expand.

OpenOffice.org includes the following programs:

OpenOffice.org Writer (a program for working with text documents and a visual HTML editor, similar to Microsoft Word).
- OpenOffice.org Calc (spreadsheet program similar to Microsoft Excel).
- OpenOffice.org Draw (a program for creating and editing vector graphics).
- OpenOffice.org Impress (software for preparing small presentations, similar to Microsoft PowerPoint).
- OpenOffice.org Base (database management system - DBMS).
- OpenOffice.org Math (math formula editor).
- System for recording macros (macros).
- Startup Accelerator (via preload).

You can download OpenOffice for free from

2) libreoffice


The second most popular is this product. Functionality is also top notch.
LibreOffice is a free, independent, open source office suite created as a fork of the OpenOffice.org suite. LibreOffice is free for both private and educational or commercial use. Can be used without any license fees by your family, friends, work colleagues, students, employees and so on.
All components of LibreOffice work well together and complement each other, providing the user with everything necessary for daily work with documents, data entry, systematization and analysis, marketing, presentations and training. LibreOffice is easy to use and can be used without special training by anyone who has ever worked with any office programs.

LibreOffice consists of the following parts:

LibreOffice Writer is a word processing program and a visual HTML editor.
- LibreOffice Calc is a spreadsheet program.
- LibreOffice Draw - a program for creating and editing vector graphics.
- LibreOffice Impress - presentation preparation program.
- LibreOffice Base - a mechanism for connecting to external DBMS and built-in HSQLDB DBMS.
- LibreOffice Math - editor of mathematical formulas.

You can download LibreOffice for free from

3) [R] Software Editor


R]Software Editor is a powerful free text editor that supports all basic text processing functions. The program uses a multi-document interface (several documents can be opened simultaneously in one window).
Supported text formats - RVF, RVP, RTF, XML, HTML, TXT, EXE. Insert images in the following formats: BMP, EMF, WMF, ICO, JPG, GIF (including animated), PNG, SWF.

Main features of [R]Software Editor:

Select font, size, text color, background color, style, set spacing, offset, text scale
- Paragraph alignment left, right, center and justified. Setting for a paragraph the interval before and after the line, line spacing, setting tab positions. Sets a custom border and fill color for the paragraph.
- Creation of bulleted and numbered lists (including multilevel).
- Visual work with tables: inserting and deleting rows, columns, merging, splitting cells, setting borders, frames, vertical alignment of text in cells. Convert text to table and tables to text.
- Formatting text and images with hypertext links.
- Spell checking using MS Office dictionaries (versions prior to 2000) or ISpell.
- Spell checking carried out in the background or on demand.
- Customizable autocorrect lists as you type (can be disabled).
- Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
- The function of counting the number of words and the proportion of all the words of the document.
- Ability to convert BMP document images to JPG, GIF or PNG format.
- Search and replace functions.
- Text encoding conversion functions (from KOI, DOS, ISO).
- Print with preview.

Due to the fact that the official site "died" that way in 2008 and no new releases are expected, I suggest downloading the latest version 1.3.12 from this site. Until that time, they managed to adapt the product to versions of windows 98 and XP. I didn’t set myself on seven, you can check for yourself how it will go on new versions. The Russian language is still there.

4) AbiWord


AbiWord is a fast free text editor with rich functionality and a clear interface. It can be used as an alternative to Microsoft Office to create, edit and print simple text and "mixed" (with tables and pictures) documents, and save them in most popular formats.
The basis of AbiWord is quite compact and uses little system resources, so it can be used on almost all computers, regardless of their configuration.

Key features of AbiWord:

Full integration into the Windows operating system.
- AbiWord supports all standard format types: OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Rich Text Format, HTML and many more...
- Wide functionality of the program: text formatting, working with pictures, tables and styles, spell checking...
- Multilingual interface. Ukrainian and Russian languages ​​are also supported.
- Using the spell check function for Ukrainian and Russian is possible after downloading the corresponding dictionary (dictionaries).
- Command line support. AbiWord can be easily integrated with other programs, which can be useful, for example, when creating a large number of documents of the same type.
- To expand the capabilities of the text editor, add-ons (plugins) have been created with the help of which AbiWord can be "taught" to perform one or another function you need.

You can download AbiWord for free from

Note:

To install a Russian spell checking dictionary, download and extract it to the appropriate directory (by default C:/Program Files/AbiWord/dictionary/ispell). You can also select the required languages ​​when installing the program (in this case, the installer will download and install them on its own.

The prog apparently was scored in 2010 and now it supports a maximum of windows XP.

5) Lotus Symphony


IBM Lotus Symphony is a free set of office applications for creating, editing and sharing texts, spreadsheets, presentations and other closed source documents. It uses OpenOffice.org technologies and Eclipse, a free integrated development environment for modular cross-platform applications, and supports ODF (OpenDocument) standards. Lotus Symphony includes programs such as Symphony Documents, Symphony Presentations, and Symphony Spreadsheet. Symphony can work with different document formats, including those used in MS Office. By default, documents are saved in the ODF format. Documents can also be saved from the program in PDF format.

Lotus Symphony features:
- support for VBA scripts
- support for ODF 1.2 standard
- OLE support for Office 2007
- the ability to insert OLE, audio and video files
- new clip-art gallery
- the ability to create new business cards and labels, new template files
- support for VML images in OOXML files
- support for multiple options to protect spreadsheet and sheet files in VBA API
- support for addons to download spell checking dictionary in 22 languages ​​for Windows OS users
- better graphical rendering of the object by improving anti-aliasing
Document editor
- Support for native nested tables.
- support for multi-page layout.
- support for autotext function
Spreadsheet editor
New opportunities:
- equation solver
- sheet zoom
Presentation editor
- displaying images on multiple monitors
- more animation, graphic and text objects, text effects.
- more page layouts.
Graphs
- a new engine for plotting graphs.
- added chart types: cylinders, cones, pyramids...

You can download Lotus Symphony for free from

6) SoftMaker FreeOffice


SoftMaker FreeOffice is a relatively new and good editor that can open and edit not only text files, but also presentation and spreadsheet formats (.doc/docx, xls/xlsx, ppt/pptx).
This package includes TextMaker text editor, PlanMaker spreadsheet editor and SotMaker Presentations presentation software. The Smash utility is also supplied, which can launch all programs from the system tray.
The interface language is Russian.
Download free editor from . Registration is required to download.

Free alternative editors to replace notepad

1) AkelPad


Of course, one of the main competitors of the notebook.
AkelPad is a small free text editor that can work in both multi-window and normal (one document - one window) mode. It is a very powerful and fast text editor, it has the most necessary functionality that can be extended with plugins. In addition, it correctly displays pseudographics, and also allows you to customize the font and background.
Using AkelPad, you can even edit read-only files, as well as preview files before opening them. Other features of AkelPad include a multi-level undo system, a list of recently opened files in the program, remembering the code page for a file, the position of the insertion mark and the last search/replace line.

Main features of AkelPad:

Single-window mode (SDI), multiple-window mode (MDI).
- Full support for Unicode strings on Unicode systems (NT/2000/XP/2003).
- Working with Unicode encodings (UTF-16 little endian, UTF-16 big endian, UTF-8).
- Work with any code page installed in the system.
- Work with DOS/Windows and Unix line feed formats (including saving).
- Preview of opening files.
- Correct display of pseudographics.
- Editing files with the "Read Only" attribute.
- Warning when trying to open a binary file.
- Multi-level rollback actions.
- Search/replace text strings, escape sequences.
- Remember file encoding.
- Storing the position of the carriage in the file.
- List of recently opened files.
- Support for plugins (syntax highlighting, auto-completion, running scripts, keyboard macros).
- Support for language modules.

You can download AkelPad for free from

2) EditPad Lite


EditPad Lite is a compact, user-friendly editor with all the features and advanced features you need for a text editor. Allows you to open several files at the same time, without limiting the size and length of the line. You can switch between open files using bookmarks, so there is no inconvenience from working with multiple windows.

Main features of EditPad Lite:

Can be installed on a USB drive or other portable device.
- Search and Replace function working in all open files.
- Unlimited undo and redo actions. Undo changes even after saving.
- Editing and converting ASCII, ANSI and Unicode files.
- It is possible to create text files not only in European, but also in Eastern languages.
- Editing structured text files, saving part of the text on disk and inserting the file into the current content.
- Preview function, print font setting, margins, headers and footers, etc.?
- Option "on top of windows".
- Warning when closing an unsaved file.
- Support for ISO-8859 code pages, as well as most DOS, KOI8 and EBCDIC.
- Choice of settings - word wrap on a new line, line numbering and auto-indent separately for each file type.
- Define your own file types.

The only drawback is that there is no Russian language.

You can download EditPad Lite for free from

3) EmEditor




Main features of EmEditor:

Working with large files (up to 500 GB)
- Ability to underline and highlight commands of various programming languages
- Create javascript or VBScript macros
- Pseudo-multi-window interface will make it easier to work with multiple files at the same time
- Fully implemented and support for drag "n" drop, Unicode and all popular text formats.
- In principle, even a Word document will open, albeit with a loss of formatting
- Automatic conversion of entered URLs and e-mail addresses into hyperlinks.

The overall impression is spoiled only by the shareware status of the program, which allocates only 30 days of free use of EmEditor...

You can download EmEditor for free from

4) ListEdit


I didn’t know where to take it, because. it may be suitable for developers as well. Please bear this in mind.
Perhaps the best description of EmEditor is "Notepad refined to the smallest detail." After all, you see, a simple but compact text editor is needed quite often - for example, for personal notes or more serious things like programming and Web design. Another thing is that the standard Notepad, due to the limitation on the size of the edited file (no more than 64 KB) and poor functionality, does not suit this role in any way.

all the necessary functions for working with text are provided:
- vertical panels of bookmarks and numbering of lines of text;
- use of bookmarks in the text with the ability to save them even after closing the document;
- opening large files;
- unlimited undo/return of changes in the text;
- automatic indent when entering new lines of text;
- advanced search and replace options in text, using the search-replace panel instead of the search-replace dialog box;
- use of a list of substitutions for quick insertion of frequently used text;
- built-in file manager with features:
- opening files in the current folder, the history of openings and in Favorites;
- filtering and sorting the list of files to open;
- Slideshow mode of opened files;
- support for Unicode, UTF-8, UTF-7 encodings and all encodings available in your Windows (WIN, DOS, MAC, KOI8, ISO and others);
- customizable auto-detection of encodings;
- support and auto-detection of RTF files;
- conversion of both the entire text and selected fragments;
- checking spelling and grammar using Microsoft Word dictionaries;
- Spell check both in the entire text and in selected fragments;
- viewing and editing web-pages (HTML files);
- viewing web-images (files GIF, JPG, PNG);
- setting the font, color and background separately for editing mode and viewing mode;
- use of numerous configurations (additional ini-files) of the program, depending on the extensions of the files being opened;
- extended possibilities of using multi-replacements in the text (customizable list of multi-replacements, support for macro substitutions, implementation of character transliteration, etc.);
- operations of sorting selected lines of text and other operations on lines (paragraphs);
- management of open windows of the program, including:
- opening the current file in a new program window;
- opening a file in a new program window (any way + pressing the key);
- closing or minimizing all open windows of the program;
- support for Windows XP visual style;
- use as an external plug-in for Total Commander to view files by pressing the key or edit files by pressing the key;
- the ability to Drag & drop text editing and file opening;
- display of hyperlinks in the text;
- support for Microsoft IntelliMouse;
- the ability to display a standard context menu (Shell Context Menu) for a file opened in the program (as well as in Explorer);
- memorization of the history of search-replacement strings of occurrences in the text;
- fast file printing from the command line (key "/p");
- mode of inserting HTML text (Format HTML) from the clipboard;
- auto-insert text from the clipboard;
- support for end-to-end navigation tools (back and forth) on files opened in the current session (including hyperlinks), regardless of which built-in window of the program - editor or browser you are currently in. Editor-viewer of text and WEB files (web pages and web pictures). The program can be used as a plug-in for viewing or editing files in Total(Windows) Commander.

5) PolyEdit


A wonderful competitor to AbiWord from developers from the ex-USSR. Like its ideological inspirer (that is, WinWord), PolyEdit is primarily focused on high-quality design and text formatting. Integration with the system is also not forgotten: tables, pictures, cliparts, objects of various Windows applications - all this is inserted into a PolyEdit document in the blink of an eye. There is also an automatic spell checker for Russian and English, and even a special "smart" module for monitoring the contents of the clipboard, auto-format text (in RTF or ASCII) and much, much more.
Oddly enough for an average editor, PolyEdit also knows how to work with binary files, immediately after editing it launches them for execution. Completing the picture is an intuitive and user-friendly Word-style interface. The toolbar contains all the most relevant functions - starting with the spacing between lines in a paragraph and ending with a quick drawing of tables. Well, the built-in mail client will allow you to immediately send your work to the addressee.
By and large, the only thing missing is a drawing panel for creating simple shapes and flowcharts, as well as a text correction module typed in the “wrong” layout

Main features of PolyEdit:

Allows you to encrypt and compress your documents for secure and fast transmission over the Internet
- Preview and split text into columns
- insert OLE objects, pictures, tables and special characters
- check spelling
- create your own document archives with a hierarchical structure
- edit program texts with syntax highlighting
- work with various formats and encodings: RTF, ETF, MS Word 6.0/95/97/2000/XP/2003/2007, MS Excel, MS Write, WordPerfect, OEM (DOS), ANSI (Windows), Unicode, UTF- 8, Mac, Unix.
In addition, the capabilities of the program can be significantly expanded with the help of additional modules (plug-ins)
OS - maximum Windows XP

For Russian users, the program is registered for free - you need to enter the word Gift for version v.5.4 in the key field - this key is not suitable for the 6th version (portable).

You can download PolyEdit for free from
The Russian language is in the same place, but lower. If you don't want to search

6) metapad


A small and fast text editor that can serve as a replacement for the standard Notepad. Supports two types of hot-switch fonts, link highlighting, bookmarks, two customizable external viewers, ten "hot" text snippets for insertion.
All in all, Metapad includes all the features of Notepad. For this reason, it is at least as good as a regular Windows tool. However, you will have to download the Russification of the interface separately, as well as work a little while mastering the new application.

7) MioPad


A simple text editor MioPad is focused primarily on working with plain text. The program is a single executable module that does not require installation in the system. Nothing is written in.
The MioPad toolbar cannot be customized in any way. Only one document is allowed. When you try to open the second file, the first one is prompted to save. It will be unloaded from memory. However, the text editor remembers the names of previously opened files and adds them to its history. It also stores the position of the cursor at the time the document was closed.

The program automatically recognizes all encodings that use Cyrillic. It is possible to save UTF-8 documents. In addition, you can open a DOC, RTF or HTML document and convert it to plain text. There is also the possibility of transliteration of texts, which allows you to use the document on computers where Cyrillic is not installed. For example, you can convert the text to Latin, send a letter to a friend who lives far abroad, and then return the document to its original form again. Sending emails is possible from a text editor. The message creation window is called for the mail client installed in the system by default. The text of the letter is the current document.
In case of a keyboard layout error, you can select a piece of text and perform the conversion. There is no point in typing again. There is an option to check spelling. This requires MS Word installed on the system. The check starts from the current cursor position to the end of the document.
For ease of navigation through documents, it is convenient to use bookmarks. Their number is not limited. In other programs, it is worth recalling that, most often, you can create no more than ten of them. MioPad doesn't just bookmark by remembering the cursor position. The entire line is also copied. By opening the bookmarks window, you can not only see all the marked positions, but also quickly navigate through them. The entire list of bookmarks can be saved to a file and then reused. The bookmarks window has two permanent buttons for quickly moving to the position where you started reading the document when you opened the file, as well as to the point where you were before you started navigating through the bookmarks. In addition, MioPad supports the creation of text titles.
The program supports text compaction by removing extra line breaks, spaces, tab characters. String sorting is also possible. It is usually used to process lists. Sorting is carried out either over the entire document, or only over its selected part.
MioPad has the ability to connect dictionaries to explain the meanings of specific words, to translate them from unfamiliar languages. By default, the word under the cursor is processed. A dictionary is an external text file, each line of which is a combination of the spelling of a word and its meaning, interpretation or translation.
The use of synonyms is allowed, that is, several descriptions can be assigned to one word.
The text editor contains a powerful scientific calculator. Either the selected text fragment or part of the current line up to the cursor is passed to it. It depends on the presence of an equal sign in this string.
The MioPad help system consists of two text files. One of them covers general issues related to the operation of the application, and the other document is a detailed description of the built-in calculator.

You can download MioPad for free from

8) Notepad X


Compact text editor Notepad X is positioned as a replacement for Notepad. We can agree with this, because the program, on the one hand, does not shine with an abundance of features, and on the other hand, it has an attractive appearance and a pleasant interface. In other words, the text editor is aimed at a simple user, in a good way.

The program installs without asking questions, but refuses to run on an unprepared Windows system. What should be her preparation? On the official page of the project, you can read that the application requires the .Net Framework 2.0 installed on the system. After ensuring such requirements, everything falls into place, the text editor starts up and starts working.
Notepad X allows you to work with several documents at the same time, switching between them using tabs. Toolbars are a popular design used in many Windows applications. Icons appear next to many items on the main menu. This is a rarity for text editors, they usually do without such generous beauties. Probably, this is done in order to save resources, in order to reduce the size of the distribution, because positioning as a replacement for Notepad makes you try not to swell much compared to the regular application of the system, a real baby, baby.
In addition to working with plain text, Notepad X has the ability to work with RTF. These tools are primitive, and it cannot be said that a text editor can even replace WordPad. However, to create fairly simple documents with font styling, with lists and images, Notepad X is fine.
Another of its features is the work with the BBCode format. It is used in forums and is also intended for complex text formatting. The features of Notepad X are the ability to quickly insert many BBCode tags.
A text editor can change the case of letters, number lines, rename documents. The list of the most frequently used files is made using favorites. In order to add a new document to it, you must first save it to your hard drive. The working window of the application can smoothly change the transparency. After installing and running the application, a new icon appears in the Windows system tray, which allows the text editor to perform basic file operations without having to open the application's working window.
Notepad X is handy when preparing simple texts and documents that use not very complex styling. In addition, a text editor can be used to create posts on forums that use BBCode formatting.

You can download Notepad X for free from

Free editors for developers

1) Notepad++


Notepad++ is a free text file editor with syntax support for a wide range of programming languages. The program has a wide range of options and is characterized by minimal consumption of processor resources.
Among the advanced features of Notepad++ are the option to highlight text and the ability to collapse blocks according to the syntax of the programming language. The user can independently define the syntax of the programming language. It is possible to set the backlight mode. Color highlighting of directives and programming language operators is available.
Notepad++ provides the ability to view and edit multiple documents at the same time. You can also view and edit the same document in two display windows in different places. A change to a document in one viewport will be automatically moved to the second viewport (i.e. you are editing one document that has a clone in the second viewport).

Other features of Notepad++:

Auto-completion of the typed word.
- Ability to create your own list of API functions (or download it from the download page).
- Support for Regular Expressions Find/Replace.
- Full support for dragging text fragments.
- Dynamic change of viewports.
- Automatic detection of the file state (notification about changing or deleting a file by another program - with the ability to reload the file or delete it from the program).
- Zoom in and out (scaling).
- Support for a large number of languages.
- Listing of programs can be printed in color - as you see on the screen in the editing window.
- Document notes.
- Highlight brackets when editing text.
- Macro recording and execution.

You can download Notepad++ for free from

2) PSPad

PSPad is a compact, easy-to-use tool with powerful code editor capabilities that is essential for working with multiple programming languages ​​(including PHP, Perl, HTML, and Java) and working with text data at the same time.
PSPad has a powerful graphical user interface that allows you to work with projects, work on multiple documents at the same time in tabbed mode (MDI), search and replace in files, compare texts with multi-colored highlighting of differences. Other useful features include saving screen sessions and the ability to edit files directly from the web server.

Main features of PSPad:

Macro support: recording, saving and loading.
- Templates (HTML tags, scripts, code templates).
- Templates for HTML, PHP, Pascal, JScript, VBScript, MySQL, MS-DOS, Perl.
- User defined highlighting styles for exotic syntaxes.
- Auto-correction.
- Smart embedded HTML preview using IE and Mozilla.
- Full HEX editor.
- Calling external programs, separately for each development environment.
- An external compiler with output interception, a log window and a log parser for each environment creates an "IDE" effect.
- Color syntax highlighting for printing and print preview.
- Integrated TiDy-library for formatting and checking HTML-code, conversion to CSS, XML, XHTML.
- Built-in free version of TopStyle Lite CSS editor.
- Export code with highlighting in RTF, HTML, TeX formats. file or clipboard.
- Vertical selection, bookmarks, labels, line numbering.
- Reformatting and compressing HTML code, changing the case of words, tags and letters.
- Sorting rows with the ability to sort by a given column, with the option to remove duplicates.
- Table of ASCII characters with matching HTML mnemonics.
- Code navigator for Pascal, INI, HTML, XML, PHP.
- Spell check.
- Embedded web browser with Apache support.
- Highlighting paired brackets.

Attention: To install spell checking dictionaries, download the desired language. After downloading, unpack the file into a directory Spell(usually C:/Program Files/PSPad editor/Spell). Then, go to the Settings/Spelling Options menu and select one of the installed dictionaries. You may need to create a Spell directory in the program folder if it doesn't already exist.

You can download PSPad for free from

3) bluefish


Bluefish is a powerful free text editor aimed primarily at programmers and web developers. It has a lot of features to make it easier to write websites, scripts and code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, has a simple and easy-to-learn interface, and can be integrated with external programs.
Like other modern text editors, Bluefish has customizable syntax highlighting, supports tabs, can automatically complete HTML tags, recognizes a large number of encodings, and has a huge number of other useful features.

Main properties of Bluefish:

Powerful search and replace tools that allow you to use regular expressions.
- Spell checking HTML pages.
- Built-in help information for various programming languages
- Folding code blocks.
- Unlimited number of undo and redo actions.
- Highlighting the beginning and end of tags for the corresponding blocks.
- Auto-complete and auto-close tags for many programming languages.
- Multilingual interface.
- Recursive opening of files.
- User-configurable toolbar for quick access to frequently used functions.

There are a lot of links on the site not for Windows, but I found the latest version, though x32, but it will even work on windows 8 download GNU Emacs for free


GNU Emacs (more commonly referred to simply as Emacs) is a cross-platform text editor aimed primarily at programmers. One of its notable features is the ability to expand functionality. For example, you can turn it into a scheduler or a debugger. Another interesting feature is line-by-line comparison of the contents of two files.

6) Crimson Editor


It is a lightweight text editor for Windows with support for many languages. Using the macro function, it is possible to record the execution of the same type of actions. There is a built-in FTP client. Not a bad solution for Windows users.

9) Komodo Edit


Komodo Edit is a free cross-platform text editor created by ActiveState. Based on the popular Komodo IDE development environment. It has a very convenient projector manager that will help you organize your work. Many developers use it as a layout editor.

Disclaimer

I am young enough and inexperienced in the field of IT to give some super-arguments, so everything listed below will be my personal subjective thoughts and reasoning. If someone does not agree with me - I will only be happy to support the discussion and discuss all this in the comments.


Now I work under Windows, in the future I may switch to Mac OS, so when choosing a text editor / IDE, I immediately highlighted cross-platform. I considered a little more options than I will list here, because I decided to highlight only the most accustomed ones. I will try to briefly describe the view on different aspects of the listed software products.

Standard Tasks

By standard tasks, I mean banal layout tasks, i.e. HTML, CSS, maybe JavaScript. I won't emphasize things that are everywhere, like changing color themes, a project folder control system, etc.

Great editor for ASP.NET and node.js applications. The famous IntelliSense, the ability to work with classes and objects by reference. All Microsoft style. There is a built-in debugger. I also want emphasize, which in my opinion is a great replacement for MonoDevelop for .NET developers outside of Windows (i.e. Visual Studio).

The editor is still under development, but work is progressing quite quickly, given that this is Microsoft.

Outcome


Summarizing the above, I have made my choice. You don't have to settle for the same criteria as me. I will be glad to discuss everything in the comments to the article.

Thanks for attention!

Good afternoon.

Every computer has at least one text editor (notepad), which is usually used to open txt documents. Those. in fact, this is the most popular program that absolutely everyone needs!

Windows XP, 7, 8 has a built-in notepad (a simple text editor that opens only txt files). In general, it seems to be nothing, it is quite convenient to write several lines into it when working, but for something more - it will not work. In this article, I would like to consider the best text editors that can easily replace the default program.

The best text editors

An excellent editor, the first thing I install after installing Windows is it. Supports, probably (if I honestly did not count), more than fifty different formats. For example:

1. Text: ini, log, txt, text;

2. Web Scripts: html, htm, php, phtml, js, asp, aspx, css, xml;

3. Java & Pascal: java, class, cs, pas, inc;
4. Public Scripts sh, bsh, nsi, nsh, lua, pl, pm, py and much more...

By the way, the program code, this editor can easily highlight. For example, if you sometimes have to edit PHP scripts - here you can easily find the right line and replace it. In addition, this notepad can easily display hints (Cntrl + Space).

And one more thing, which I think will be useful to many Windows users. Very often there are such files that do not open correctly: some kind of encoding failure occurs and instead of text you see different “cracks”. In Notepad++, these bugs are easy to fix - just select the "encodings" section, and then convert the text from ANSI to UTF 8 (or vice versa) for example. Kryakozabry and obscure symbols should disappear.

This editor still has a lot of advantages, but I think that in order to permanently get rid of the headache of what to open and with what - it will come in handy! Once installed the program - and forgot about the problem forever!

Very good editor - notepad. I would recommend using it if you are not going to open formats like: php, css, etc. - i.e. where lighting is needed. It's just that in this notebook it is implemented worse than in Notepad ++ (purely in my opinion).

The rest of the program is great! It works very quickly, there are all the necessary options: opening files with different encodings, setting the date, time, highlighting, search, replace, etc.

It will come in handy for all those users who just want to expand the capabilities of a regular notepad in Windows.

Among the shortcomings, I would single out the lack of support for multiple tabs, which is why if you work with several documents, you experience inconvenience ...

One of the most popular text editors. Interestingly, it is extensible, with the help of plugins - its functions can be easily changed. For example, the screenshot above shows the operation of a program that is built into the popular file commander - Total Commander. By the way, perhaps this fact also played a role in the popularity of this notebook.

Essentially: there is a highlight, a bunch of settings, searches and replaces, tabs. The only thing I'm missing is support for different encodings. Those. they seem to be in the program, but it’s a problem to switch and convert text from one format to another…

Well, I could not help but include in this review one very nice text editor - Sublime Text. Firstly, it will appeal to those who do not like light design - yes, many users prefer dark color and bright highlighting of keywords in the text. By the way, perfect for those who work with PHP or Python.

A convenient column is displayed on the right in the editor, which can move you to any part of the text at any time! It is very convenient when you are editing a document for a long time and you constantly need to navigate through it.

Well, about the support of many tabs, formats, search and replace - and there is no need to talk. This editor supports them!

This concludes this review. In general, there are hundreds of different similar programs on the net and it was quite difficult to choose the right ones for recommendation. Yes, many will object, they will say that the best is Vim, or a regular notepad in Windows. But the purpose of the post was not to argue, but to recommend excellent text editors, and I and hundreds of thousands of users of these products have no doubts that these editors are among the best!

All the best!

Almost every programmer feels the need to find the best development tools. These can be editors, libraries for managing tasks, frameworks for simplifying work on projects, etc.

Tools make work easier and at the same time increase productivity.

Of all the tools developers have ever used, the text editor is the hardest to pick. Livecoding.tv streamers use a variety of editors, and almost everyone vehemently defends their choice.

Not to mention that there are separate communities for each popular editor. In the end, everyone has their own preferences, their own arguments for and against.

The editor plays a central role in any developer workspace. Code is written, debugged, and executed using a text editor.

Choosing the perfect editor for your work can be a complex task that involves: testing, personal preference, and the final decision. Before you make your choice, we'll take you on a tour through the best editors 2016 of the year.

We will discuss 6 editors in detail, but you can find other, lesser known editors at the end of the article.

SUBLIME TEXT EDITOR

Sublime Text editor is one of the best text editors today. It's a great alternative to powerful IDEs, it's lightweight and does its job with great efficiency and precision.

Sublime Text has tons of features that will make you feel the power at your fingertips. But, like any tool, it is not perfect. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of using Sublime Text editor.

Advantages:

  • Nice, easy, minimalistic interface.
  • Very flexibly configurable. Multiple selection.
  • The ability to create any snippets and insert them at least by hot keys, at least by letter abbreviations (in the style of Zen Coding).
  • The ability to assign hot keys to absolutely any action.
  • In snippets, you can set where the cursor will be when pasting, set placeholders and switch to the desired parts of the snippet with Tab.
  • The presence of a code minimap for easy movement.
  • Ability to display hidden characters (spaces, tabs) only when highlighting code.
  • There are many plugins available and a growing community of users who write them for any need.

Disadvantages:

  • Sublime text is paid. Given that there are many good free editors on the market, anyone can choose an alternative.
  • It is not updated as often as before.
  • Load times are higher compared to Notepad++.
  • The quality of the plugins remains in question.

All in all, Sublime text is a great editor to work with. You can use it for free with an infinite trial period. If you don't like popups, you can purchase the editor for $70. It works on all major OS - Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

Vim has stood the test of time and is one of the oldest editors in history.

Vim is very popular among developers and other computer enthusiasts who are obsessed with fully customizable editors.

Vim is famous for two reasons. Firstly, it can work with just a keyboard, without a mouse.

Secondly, it is present in almost all Unix machines. So, portability and ubiquity is a key feature of Vim.

Advantages:

  • Can be fully controlled by keyboard
  • Can be used in a remote development environment using SSH.
  • Vim can be customized to your heart's content with a .vimrc dotfile and VimScript.
  • Tons of plugins to support Vim, extend its functionality.
  • Improves performance and handles large files very well.

Disadvantages:

  • Vim for advanced users. It is not easy to learn, it will take a long time before you reach mastery, but once you master it, it will give you more power than any other editor.

Also read how to create a Vim Dotfile.

atom

Atom was introduced a year ago and is known as a modern, highly customizable open source editor. Despite the use of browser technologies, Atom is not a web application, but in fact, it is a specialized version of Chromium, in which each tab acts as a locally rendered web page.

Advantages:

  • Atom is an open source editor that is free to use.
  • Cross-platform OS X, Windows and Linux;
  • Smart auto-completion;
  • File browser;
  • Search and replace across multiple files.
  • Easy to use even for a beginner.

Disadvantages:

  • Cannot handle large files and tends to crash when uploading files above 10MB.
  • Uses a lot of memory.

If you are looking for a free, open source editor, Atom is perfect for you. It is highly mobile and available for all three major OSes. However, using Atom in large projects is undesirable.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a Microsoft product that aims to allow developers to code without downloading the massive Visual Studio (3GB+). Visual Studio Code is a lightweight, open source editor that works equally well on Windows, OS X, and Linux. The main features of Visual Studio code include support for more than 30+ languages, auto-completion, easy navigation, and more. It also includes Git and debugging tools to make development easier.

Advantages:

  • Support for more than 30 languages, as well as major Microsoft languages ​​such as ASP.NET, C#, etc.
  • The small size guarantees fast installation and use.

Disadvantages:

  • Extension support needs improvement.
  • Upgrading on Linux can be a daunting task.

Visual Studio Code is a great choice for developers who don't want to download and use bulky IDEs. It's small, cuddly, and most importantly, it does the job!

Notepad++

Notepad++ is another open source editor. In general, it resembles a vanilla notepad that supports tons of programming languages. Notepad++'s biggest advantage over the other text editors listed here is the fact that it can handle large files without any major lag or crashes. It is very fast and light. In addition, its functionality can be extended with hundreds of plugins available.

Advantages:

  • Support for a large number of encodings.
  • Syntax highlighting.
  • Parallel editing of documents.
  • Comparison of documents.
  • Search and autocorrect by regular expressions.
  • Working with files on the FTP server.
  • Auto completion.
  • Extensible with plugins.

Disadvantages:

  • Not the best user interface.
  • Too simple.

Notepad ++ is perfect for those who are satisfied with the simple interface and feature set. It will help you quickly and easily create new products.

Brackets

Our last text editor that we will be discussing in detail is the open source editor “Brackets”. Brackets is not a universal editor, it is focused on front-end development and supports a wide range of front-end technologies.

Advantages:

  • It's lightweight, modern, and has a great user interface.
  • Preview capability, preprocessor support and built-in editors. light table

The editor is an indispensable tool in the arsenal of any developer. I hope after reading the article you will make your choice.

If you think the article is missing an editor who needs attention, let us know by leaving a comment.

Most often, when working on a PC, the user works with text data, for which two main classes of software are used:

  • text editors
  • word processors.

Text editor

Definition 1

Text editor- an independent computer program (application) or part of a software package that is designed to create and edit text data.

Text editors are intended mainly for entering and editing text, but do not have the means to design the appearance of text (formatting). Thus, they are used in cases where the design of the text is superfluous or unnecessary (for example, when preparing documents for sending by e-mail). The created text file in a water editor can be edited with another editor, because the text file, when saved, contains only the codes of the entered characters.

In addition to creating and viewing text, text editors allow you to perform the following text editing operations - moving, copying, pasting text, text search and replacement, sorting lines, viewing character codes and converting encodings, printing a document, etc.

There are interactive text editors with additional functionality that are designed to automate editing actions or display text data in a special way (for example, syntax highlighting).

Types of text editors

A line-by-line text editor is designed to work with text as a sequence of numbered lines. For example, the Edlin line editor was included with MS-DOS.

A context editor that performs operations on the text at the current position. For example, the ECCE editor. An on-screen text editor allows the user to move the cursor in text using the keyboard or other input devices (such as a mouse). For example, Notepad editor.

Popular text editors

  • Emacs is a multi-purpose, free editor, one of the most powerful in terms of features, with a large number of modes of operation. Can be used for programming.
  • Kate is a powerful extensible free text editor with syntax highlighting for many programming and markup languages ​​with a flexible customizable interface.

Figure 1. Emac editor

Figure 2. Kate editor

  • Notepad is part of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
  • Vim is a free modal editor for administrators and programmers. One of the most powerful editor in terms of features with extensive customization and automation options. It has two modes of operation: text and command.
  • Notepad is a free and open source text editor for Windows designed for programmers and ordinary users.
  • TEA is a free cross-platform editor with lots of text processing and markup features in [X]HTML, LaTeX, Docbook, Lout, syntax highlighting and spell checking.
  • KeyPad+ is a text editor developed by Russian programmers for ordinary users and programmers.

Word processors

Definition 2

word processor is a computer program designed to create and edit text documents, lay out the layout of text, and preview documents as they will be printed (a feature known as WYSIWYG).

Modern word processors include font and paragraph formatting, spell checking, table and graphic creation and insertion, and some desktop publishing features.

Word processors are used in cases where, in addition to the content of the text, its appearance also matters (preparation of official documents). A document created with a word processor contains, in addition to text, information about its formatting, which is stored in codes that are not visible to the user.

Since different word processors use different codes for formatting text (documents with different formats), transferring formatted text documents from one word processor to another is not always correct. In such cases, formatting may be preserved only partially (as, for example, when transferring a document from MS Word to OpenOffice Writer) or not preserved at all (only text is transferred). Then you need to format the document again.

Popular word processors

Microsoft Word is a powerful word processor designed for creating, viewing and editing text documents. The program is included in the Microsoft Office suite. In production since 1983. Current version is MS Word 2016 for Windows and MS Word 2011 for Mac.

The capabilities of Word are extended by the built-in Visual Basic (VBA) macro language. However, this provides additional options for writing viruses that are embedded in documents, which are called macro viruses.

word pad is a word processor that is part of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Much more powerful than Notepad, but inferior to a full-fledged word processor Microsoft Word.

The processor supports text formatting and printing, but does not have tools for creating tables, spell checkers.

Figure 3. MS Word word processor

LaTeX- the most popular macro package of the TeX computer layout system for facilitating the typing of complex documents. The package is designed to automate many tasks of typing (in several languages) and preparing articles, numbering sections and formulas, cross-references, placing illustrations and tables on a page, maintaining a bibliography, etc.

OpenOffice.org Writer is a word processor that is part of the free software package OpenOffice.org. Writer is similar in many ways to the Microsoft Word word processor, but has some features that Word doesn't (such as support for page styles).

Figure 5. LaTeX word processor

Figure 6. OpenOffice.org Writer word processor

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