Contents for Notepad Help

Windows Notepad is a text editor that you can use to edit small text files, such as your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

To learn how to use Help, press F1.

How To...

Add the Time and Date to Documents

Create Time-Log Documents

Delete Text

Find Text

Format Text

Commands

File Menu Commands

Edit Menu Commands

Search Menu Commands


File Menu Commands

Use the scroll bar to see more commands.

New

Opens a new document.

When you choose New, you can save changes to the document you have been working on.

Open

Opens a text file.

When you choose Open, you can save changes to the document you have been working on. The file can be a Notepad file or any file saved as text-only from another application. Notepad cannot open a file larger than approximately 50K.

Save

Saves changes to the document you have been working on.

When you choose Save, the document remains open so you can continue working on it.

Save As

Saves a new or existing document. You can name a new document or save an existing document under a new name. The original document remains unchanged.

When you choose Save As, the document remains open so you can continue working on it.

Print

Prints one copy of the document.

Page Setup

Sets the margins, and adds headers and footers to the printed document.

Print Setup

Selects a printer and sets printing options. The available options depend on the type of printer selected.

Exit

Closes the document you have been working on and quits Notepad.

You can save the file before quitting.


Edit Menu Commands

Use the scroll bar to see more commands.

Undo

Undoes your last editing or formatting action, including cut and paste actions. If an action cannot be undone, Undo appears dimmed on the Edit menu.

Cut

Deletes text from a document and places it onto the Clipboard, replacing the previous Clipboard contents.

Copy

Copies text from a document onto the Clipboard, leaving the original intact and replacing the previous Clipboard contents.

Paste

Pastes a copy of the Clipboard contents at the insertion point or replaces selected text in a document.

Delete

Deletes selected text from a document, but does not place the text onto the Clipboard.

Use Delete when you want to delete text from the current Notepad document but you have text on the Clipboard that you want to keep.

Select All

Selects all the text in a document at once.

You can copy the selected text onto the Clipboard, delete it, or perform other editing actions.

Time/Date

Adds the current time and date to a document.

Word Wrap

Wraps text in a document.


Search Menu Commands

Find

Searches for characters or words in a document.

You can match uppercase and lowercase letters and search forward or backward from the insertion point.

Find Next

Repeats the last search without opening the Find dialog box.


Finding Text

You can start a search for specific text at any point in a Notepad document.

To find specific characters or words

1	Move the insertion point to where you want the search to begin.

2	From the Search menu, choose Find.

3	Type the characters or words you want to find.

4	If you want to match capitalization exactly, select the Match Case check box.

5	To specify the search direction, select the Up or Down option.

6	Choose the Find Next button.

7	To find the next occurrence of the text, choose the Find Next button again.

You can also close the Find dialog box and choose Find Next from the Search menu or press F3.


Deleting Text

Use the BACKSPACE or DEL key, or the Delete command, when you want to delete text from the current Notepad document but you have text on the Clipboard that you want to keep.

To delete one character at a time

Press BACKSPACE to delete the character to the left of the insertion point.

Press DEL to delete the character to the right of the insertion point.

To delete more than one character

1	Select the text you want to delete.

2	Press BACKSPACE or DEL.

Or choose Delete from the Edit menu.

To place the text onto the Clipboard, choose Cut from the Edit menu.


Formatting Text

To format text, do the following.

To	Do this

End a line	Press ENTER.

Indent a line	Press TAB.

Insert a tab	Press TAB.

Insert a blank line	Move the insertion point to the beginning or end of a line, and then press ENTER.


Adding the Time and Date to Documents

To add the time and date to a document

1	Open the document.

2	Move the insertion point to where you want the time and date to appear.

Or select the text you want the time and date to replace.

3	From the Edit menu, choose Time/Date.


Creating Time-Log Documents

You can use Notepad to create a log to keep track of how you spend your time.

To create a time-log document

1	At the left margin on the first line of a Notepad document, type .LOG.

Every time you open this document, Notepad adds the current system time and date to the end of the document.

2	Add any comments you want, or edit any text in the document.

3	From the File menu, choose Save.