# What's a decent editor for simple .txt files? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 22, 2001, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189 "2001-01-22T00:53:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spark_applied_to_powder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/1 "2001-01-22T00:53:45Z")
I like Wordpad a lot, but it won’t work with large files. And I liked DOS edit a lot (especially the way you could select things to cut and paste by columns as well as rows), but it doesn’t work with the regular cut and paste system, nor long file names. Work is overkill and takes too long to load on my machine. What else are people using for quick simple stuff? ---
**Author:** ![spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spark_applied_to_powder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/2 "2001-01-22T01:00:56Z")
I like Notepad a lot, but it won’t work with large files. And I liked DOS edit a lot (especially the way you could select things to cut and paste by columns as well as rows), but it doesn’t work with the regular cut and paste system, nor long file names. Word and Wordpad are overkill and take too long to load on my machine. What else are people using for quick simple stuff? ---
**Author:** ![OneChance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/74df32/32.png) [@OneChance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneChance)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/3 "2001-01-22T01:23:34Z")
I use [EditPad](http://www.jgsoft.com/) for all of my text files. Awesome, simple program. ---
**Author:** ![GraceTX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c4cdca/32.png) [@GraceTX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GraceTX)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/4 "2001-01-22T01:33:53Z")
I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for so I don’t know if this will work or not, but I use [Multi-Edit](http://www.multiedit.com/index.html) from American Cybernetics. ---
**Author:** ![BF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5ac83/32.png) [@BF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BF)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/5 "2001-01-22T01:36:03Z")
I’ve used EditPlus for ASP programming, and it seems to work equally well for plain text files on the large size. HTH. ---
**Author:** ![spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spark_applied_to_powder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/6 "2001-01-22T01:50:02Z")
Thanks people. I should be able to find one or more of those at Tucows downloads. ---
**Author:** ![spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@spark\_applied\_to\_powder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spark_applied_to_powder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/7 "2001-01-22T01:53:25Z")
I just realized those were links, they are almost the same color as the text, but not quite. Even better! Thanks for taking the trouble to look those up. ---
**Author:** ![S-Terry\_Dan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@S-Terry\_Dan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/S-Terry_Dan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/8 "2001-01-22T02:32:56Z")
vi ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/9 "2001-01-22T02:43:46Z")
I’m a big fan of Textpad. [http://www.textpad.com](http://www.textpad.com) ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/10 "2001-01-22T04:53:49Z")
I’m a big fan of [NoteTab](http://www.notetab.com). Feartures:[ul] [li]Multiple documents open, with tabs to select between them.[/li][li]Use regular expressions in search, as well as find-and-replace operations.[/li][li]Comes with clip libraries for editing certain kinds of files. For example, with the HTML clip open, I can highlight a phrase, type [Esc]BOLD[Enter], and it surrounds my text with \\. All HTML tags are there.[/li][li]A button on the toolbar views the current document in a web browser (again, nice for editing HTML).[/li][/ul] And many, many more. The full version is only $10 - it’s the best $10 I ever spent. ---
**Author:** ![Dani\_Filth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dani\_Filth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dani_Filth)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/11 "2001-01-22T05:55:54Z")
LOL S-Terry Dan! Ok, got my new text editor vi, so first i install linux… 😃 -Dani ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/12 "2001-01-22T09:47:03Z")
In my development team we kind’a like PFE. It was written by a student but works pretty well. You can get it (free) from [http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe](http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe) ---
**Author:** ![unnameable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ad7895/32.png) [@unnameable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unnameable)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/13 "2001-01-22T12:30:09Z")
The best small-memory-usage Notepad replacement I have found is “metapad”. Try the latest beta from [http://welcome.to/metapad/](http://welcome.to/metapad/) . It’s free and packs an amazing range of features into such a small .exe size. Only takes one file at a time but that file can be HUGE, no problems. If you rename metapad.exe to notepad.exe and copy it into your Windows folder you have no hassles with file associations etc. For a fully comprehensive text editor try UltraEdit. It can even edit hex files properly. You may never use all it’s features but they are there if you need them. Shareware 45 days trial then US$30 to register. [http://www.ultraedit.com](http://www.ultraedit.com) ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/14 "2001-01-22T12:40:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by S-Terry Dan \* > \*\*vi \*\* Sick, sick man… Okay, so I’ll admit my editor-of-choice, emacs, is a bit overkill (the name is an acronym for escape, meta, alt, control, shift :D), but come on. For text, even pico blows vi out of the water. Uh. None of which is any use to you if you’re running MS Windows, of course… ---
**Author:** ![BF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5ac83/32.png) [@BF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BF)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/15 "2001-01-22T13:08:34Z")
HA!! Standby, you will be assimilated… ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/16 "2001-01-22T13:28:15Z")
Talking of assimilation I recall Macromedia have recently ‘merged’ with Allaire, the makers of my favourite editor HomeSite. I swear, they’re taking over ! ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/17 "2001-01-22T13:59:20Z")
I’ve been a big fan of [The Semware Editor](http://www.semware.com/) for a long time, going back to the q-edit in DOS. ---
**Author:** ![sdimbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sdimbert/32/20204_2.png) [@sdimbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sdimbert)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-decent-editor-for-simple-txt-files/51189/18 "2001-01-22T15:00:40Z")
If you’ve got access to a Mac, use [BBedit](http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit.html). It is, far and away, the most useful text editor on the market. And they’ve got a great slogan.