Microsoft has given one of its workhorse applications a long-needed update in Windows 11. According to recent reports, Microsoft is finally adding spellcheck and autocorrect to Notepad, the operating system’s built-in text app. You’d be forgiven for asking how spellcheck is an exciting new feature in 2024, but it’s still good news.
Notepad has long been one of the go-to text editors on Windows, simply because of its ease of use and functionality—you can use it to create text without worrying about HTML or other formatting effects. For a long time, Notepad went without significant, prompting some Windows users to opt for Notepad2 or Notepad++. That began to change in 2018, when Microsoft added support for Mac and Unix. Since then, the app has slowly improved with the addition of text zoom, wrap-around searches, line numbers, and other features. Now, Microsoft is finally giving Notepad two major additions in the form of spellcheck and autocorrect (both features Apple’s TextEdit has offered for a while now.)
The features are only available to Windows Insiders for now
Microsoft says it is testing the new features in both the Windows 11 Canary and Dev channels. These channels are available to Windows Insiders, and it may be some time before the upgrade is rolled out to the full version of Windows 11.
According to the company, spellcheck in Notepad will work just as you’d expect: It will highlight misspelled words with red squiggly lines, and provide suggestions to help you correct mistakes.
If you’re worried about it messing up log and source code files, Microsoft notes the feature will automatically be disabled for those types of files, which would typically trigger multiple spellcheck errors due to the use of non-standard words.
There’s currently no timetable for when these new features will come to Notepad on the consumer version of Windows 11, but Windows Insiders can check them out now in the latest Canary and Developer builds.
