I like to use Notepad when I want to focus solely on typing. Later, when I need to format text, I then copy it into Open Office and do the stuff to make it pretty.
Here are three tricks I use with Notepad to make things a bit easier:
1. Create your own file extension and associate with Notepad. I noticed that the file extension “.nxq” isn’t really used by anybody else, so I started using it for all of my Notepad documents (you can get a pretty thorough list of file extensions that are in use at filext.com).
I then associated that file extension with Notepad. To do that, do this (in Vista — this should also work in XP; if it doesn’t, please leave a comment and I’ll try to figure out what works and update the post):
- Open Notepad.
- Type something in the document.
- Under the “File” menu, select “Save”.
- In the “File Name:” field, enter a file name — but use “.nxq” as the extension instead of “.txt” (i.e. “myfile.nxq” instead of “myfile.txt”.
- In the “Save as type:” field, use the drop-down control to select “All Files (*)” instead of “Text Documents (*.txt). If you skip this step, your file name will end up being something along the lines of “myfile.nxq.txt” and this trick won’t work.
- Click on the “Save” button. Be sure to remember the folder where you saved the document (or just plop it on your Desktop!).
- Close your document.
- Open Windows Explorer or My Computer and navigate to the folder where you saved your file.
- Double-click on your file. Windows will tell you that it cannot open the file and will ask you what you want to do. Select the “Select a program from a list of installed programs” radio button and click “OK”.
- With any luck, “Notepad” will either be in the list of “Recommended Programs” or “Other Programs”. If it is, just click on it once. If it is not, select the “Browse…” button, then click on the “Computer” label (under “Favorite Links”) and navigate to c:\Windows. Scroll down until you see “notepad.exe”, then double-click on it.
- Back at the “Open With” screen, ensure that the “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” check box is filled. If you want, you can enter a brief description for the file (perhaps “Journal Files”), then click the “OK” button. Your file will open in Notepad if all went well.
- From now on, just double-click your file to open it in Notepad; you’ve made the association.
(NOTE FOR YOU WINDOWS PURISTS: Yes, there is a quicker way, but if I can create a procedure that keeps people out of Control Panel, the Registry, and Administrator mode, I’m all for it. This works and keeps people from mucking up the works too terribly much!)
Of course, this leaves the obvious question: WHY would I want to do this if .txt files open in Notepad anyway? Well, on my computer, they don’t… I’ve installed another text editor that opens .txt files (UltraEdit 32). While it’s a far better editor than Notepad, there are times when I want the “quick simplicity” of Notepad, and this trick gives me the choice of using a .txt extension and using UltraEdit 32 — or using the .nxq extension and using Notepad.
2. If you have a file open in Notepad and want to create a date / time stamp (convenient for journals or if you are doing timed work for a client), just put your cursor on a new line and hit the F5 key. You’ll get a line that looks something like this:
1:57 PM 2/11/2010
(I just hit F5 in my Notepad file, then copied and pasted this to my blog.)
3. Would you like for Notepad to automatically add a date / time stamp to a file whenever you open it? All you need to do is to go to the very top of any Notepad document and type the following on a line all by itself:
.LOG
(Be sure to use upper case letters!).
Then save and close your file (I also recommend hitting the “Enter” key a couple of times at the end of your file before you save it so that your date / time stamp ends up on a line all by itself when you next open it). A date / time stamp will be automatically entered at the end of your document the next time you open it with Notepad.
A few neat little Notepad tricks that took me a LOT longer to type than I envisioned…!
Do you know of any neat Notepad tricks? If so, would you take a moment to leave a comment and share it? I’ve heard that you can get line numbers to display in Notepad; if anybody knows how to do this, PLEASE leave a comment and let me know.
