Wrap text in Windows Notepad not working properly?

General Questions
#1

Yes, I know, I’m still using Notepad in 2018. I’ve always found it handy for making quick, well notes, to myself.

Anyway after another update and ‘improvement’ to Windows 10 an odd thing has started happening to Notepad. It used to be that when you selected ‘wrap text’ it would put a complete word on a new line, now its breaking the word and wrapping letters.

eg:

I’m using the Straightdope

becomes

I’m using the Strai
tdope

Whereas it used to be

I’m using the
Straightdope

My googlefu is failing me on this one, any ideas? Thanks in advance!

#2

It doesn’t do that on my Windows-10 system. The feature is even called “word wrap” and works as expected (i.e. move whole words to the next line). Help->About indicates “Version 1803 (OS build 17134.471)”. Are you running a different version of Windows?

#3

I have the same build as **scr4 **and am seeing the same thing. I got a Windows update just over the last couple of days.

#4

I can’t duplicate this. I have the same version of Windows posted above by scr4.

In your “becomes” example, the letters gh are missing. Is this a mistake or is that really how the problem is manifesting?

Are you using vanilla Windows Home/Pro, and not some Insider’s Preview version?

Does it change if you resize the window?

Are you typing into a new text file, or opening a pre-existing text file? If it’s a pre-existing text file, have you ever edited this particular text file in macOS or Linux?

If you save a new text file with this weird word wrap-breaking and close Notepad, and then open said text file with Notepad, is the word wrapping still broken, or is it correct?

It is possible to reset Notepad to the default settings, but there’s no guarantee it will fix your problem.

#5

I have the same version and word wrap works as expected on my system as well.

#6

And/or clicked on “Check for updates” lately? There are some reports that manually clicking on “Check for updates” causes a beta version update to be installed.

#7

I love using a notepad program for a whole range of basic stuff.

If you can’t find the solution, can I suggest Notepad++?

It’s just as lightweight and easy to use at regular old Windows Notepad, but it has so many great features that the standard version lacks.

#8

Not “just as lightweight” as it takes longer to load–if you run it from a hard drive. If you have an SSD, then it loads just as quickly.

#9

Thanks for the answers everyone, sorry for the slow reply I was taking a break from the internet over Christmas.

Oddly the problem seems to have corrected itself, it must have been user error but I haven’t been doing anything different, restarted my computer though so that may have been it.

And yes road_lobo that was just a typo on my part. :slight_smile:

#10

Not sure if this is the cause, but MS recently pushed out functionality updates to Notepad. Some of the changes had to do with better handling of Linux/Unix style end of line chars.

#11

If you’re seeing anything beyond a negligible difference in launch time between Notepad and Notepad++, I suspect you have a problem with your hard drive or your system in general. I have a 7-year-old 32-bit Windows 7 desktop with 4 GB RAM and an aging Western Digital hard drive— hardly a powerhouse— and the difference is on the order of milliseconds, at most.