After you have learned how to work with WordPad, it's time to get a closer look at the old Notepad. This tool is a very basic text editor which hasn't really changed much even though all other standard Windows tools were upgraded with each new version.
This article shows the basics of Notepad: how to open the application, the important interface elements, how to create & save a text file and how to print.

How to Open Notepad

You can open the application in several ways: either directly from its Start Menu shortcut found in the Accessories folder or by using the search box and typing the word "notepad".

When you open Notepad, the application window looks similar to the one below.

As you can see, it is very minimalist and focuses on having you write text.

The Notepad Interface

The main window of the application is quite simple. As you can see in the image below, there are only five menus and two information areas to deal with, other than the writing area.

The Menu Bar on top has a few useful menus. The File menu offers basic options for creating a new document, opening an existing one, saving, printing and customizing page dimensions.

The Edit menu offers editing options like copy, cut, paste or delete. There are also a few searching options such as: Find, Go To a specific line number in your document, or Replace which helps you find a specific text and have it replaced with something else. Clicking on Time/Date inserts the current time and date.

You can set some font options like size, type or style in the Format menu.

In the Format menu there is an option called 'Word Wrap'. When this option is not active the text appears in a continuous line, no matter how long it is. If you have to read a very long text, you need to use the scroll bar to read it all.

If Word Wrap is activated, the text is made to fit in the Notepad window and it is more easy to read. However, when this option is enabled, you can no longer use the Go To function from the Edit menu.

Next you have the Status Bar that allows you to see the columns and lines numbers from your document. This feature can be disabled from the View menu.

NOTE: When Word Wrap is active, the Status bar is disabled automatically.

How to Create & Save a Notepad Document

To create a new document just open the application and begin to write your text.

When done, save your document by going to the menu File and choosing Save As.

Select the location where you want to save the text file and type the name of the file. When done, press the Save button.

NOTE: It's important for you to know what is the difference between Save as and Save. Save simply saves your work by updating the last saved version of the file to match the current version shown on your screen. Save As brings up a prompt to save the text you've created as a file with a different name. When first creating a document, the Save function acts just as Save As. After the first save, their behavior is different.

How to Open a Notepad document

If you forgot something about the document you just created or you simply want to open another, you can do that by using the Open option from the File menu.

A new window appears, where you have to choose the location, select your document and press Open.

NOTE: If you did not change your default file associations for text files in Windows 7, and you want to open a text file with Notepad, simply double click on the file. A new Notepad window appears, showing the content of the text file.

How to print a document

Printing a document in Notepad is very easy: you just have to access the print option from the File menu or press Ctrl+P on your keyboard.

Then you can choose the desired printer, page range, number of copies you want to print, etc. When done setting the printing options, press the Print button.

Conclusion

As you can see from this article, Notepad is a very basic and easy to use tool. If you need basic text editing, without any fancy formatting, then it is the best tool for the job. Otherwise you need to consider more advanced tools like the new WordPad, OpenOffice, LibreOffice or Microsoft Word. If you have any questions about this tool, don't hesitate to use the comment form below.

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