Notepad now has spell checking and autocorrect

What's wrong?

For a long time, both WordPad and Notepad were included in the standard Windows utilities. And in 2020, an update was released for Windows 10, and users were given the opportunity to remove WordPad.

WordPad is a simplified and very fast version of Word. It consumed few system resources and practically did not require an Internet connection – unlike most modern office suites. But Microsoft decided not to transfer the outdated software to the new version of Windows.

In February 2024, company representatives reported: “Starting with this build, WordPad and People will no longer be installed during a clean install of the OS. In a future release, WordPad will be removed during an upgrade. WordPad cannot be reinstalled. WordPad is a legacy feature of Windows.”

This is what happened: the text editor was removed from the list of default applications in the new version of the OS after the release of the service pack.

The Rise of the Notepad

Notepad appeared much earlier than WordPad — back in 1983. In 1985, it was added to the release version of Windows 1.0. And since then, its capabilities have remained virtually unchanged — several functions were added only with the release of Windows 11.

The ice broke in early 2024. To respond to user demands, Microsoft developers gradually began adding new features to Notepad. For example, it now has a character counter, which never existed, and an autosave function that allows you not to lose information if something goes wrong.

Since March The developers were testing the spell check function. And a few days ago, the new version of Notepad became available to all Windows 11 users.

Spell checking is no different from the same function in Word. Words with errors are underlined in red. By calling the context menu with the right mouse button, you can add new words to the user dictionary, replace words, etc. There is also an option for automatic replacement.

It's odd that Microsoft waited 40 years to add all of this to Notepad. The word processor has been upgradable for much longer, since 1985. That's when the spell-checking feature first appeared. At the time, it was known as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix and MS-DOS.

The new Notepad lets you turn spell checking on or off for each file type for Windows 11. If you don’t want to see corrections in files like .md, .srt, .lrc, or .lic, you can turn them off in Settings. Spell checking is also automatically turned off in log files and other file types that involve coding. Microsoft has added autocorrect to Notepad, so typos are corrected when spell checking is enabled.

The editor also has other features, including the ability to change themes, tabs, and integration with Copilot.

Will WordPad be brought back?

The question is not idle. Despite the updates to Notepad, many Windows users still want to return to the familiar WordPad. The fact is that in Notepad you can only type text – without formatting, tables and images. But WordPad allowed you to do all this.

“I use WordPad for RTF files because it loads faster than MS Word. I keep reference notes in RTF because Notepad doesn't support text formatting. Please add WordPad to the Microsoft Store like you did with MS Paint when it was deprecated in Windows.”— says a comment from one user left in Microsoft's Feedback Hub.

“I often use RTF for simple documents because they are not heavy. Just yesterday I used WordPad to create and write a list of actions for a work task on the server. It is great when you do not need a large program and you are offline. It is the only built-in tool that allows you to put text and images in one document.”— added by another user.

Microsoft representatives refused to return the application to the Windows OS, so there is no hope.

Many users prefer other text editors to Notepad, including, for example, the free NotePad++. It is much more functional, and both regular users and programmers work with it. For example, there is syntax highlighting, not to mention a large number of other features: searching by files in a folder or different directories, auto-replacement in different files, changing encoding, etc.