In a world where fancy, hyper-connected, conspicuous apps get in the way, one app stands out for its simplicity: Windows Notepad. That’s why it’s still a great choice for notes.
The benefits of Notepad
The humble Windows Notepad has been with us for 35 years, tweaked into every version of Windows since Windows 1.0, It has a simple mission: to easily browse, create and edit text files, which are one of the most fundamental building blocks of modern computing.
Even these days, Notepad is still a useful tool for creating quick notes on your computer. There are certainly specialized note-taking apps that support more sophisticated formatting, data structuring, or cloud syncing across platforms. But for some people, extra features just mean extra baggage they don’t want to deal with. That’s why Notepad is still great.
It’s quick and easy
When you want to write something down, you want to do it quickly while the idea is still fresh. That’s how Notepad shines. Click the Notepad icon and the program instantly appears on your screen. You don’t have to wait for libraries and unusual features to load into memory before you can use the program. When inspiration strikes, every moment counts, and Notepad is ready and waiting to capture your ideas.
By the way, if you need a quick way to create time stamps in your notes using Notepad, just press F5 and the current date and time will be instantly inserted in your file.
Uses future storage format
Text files are as old as personal computers themselves (older, in fact), and as long as Windows writes its text files in an industry-standard format such as ASCII or Unicode, it’s very likely that you’ll be able to read your notes on any computer platform far into the future. Other programs write their specially formatted notes in their own file formats or even in databases, which may not be read easily in the future,
You stay in control
Notepad lets you save your notes (as text files) exactly where you want them, and you have no one but your operating system to answer the question of organizing, copying or backing them up. You can transfer your notes to another application by opening them in any application that understands text files.
If you use an app to create notes, your notes can be locked behind a paid subscription and stored in the cloud. The company storing the data is the gatekeeper of your ideas.
If the app stores data locally in an unobvious location on your hard drive in a proprietary format, and in some future disaster recovery scenario you have to dig through the ashes of your data, trying to find and recover the actual notes data in File Explorer will be difficult.
Privacy and security are up to you
With cloud-based note taking apps, your notes are pushed out over the Internet and can be viewed on any device with the app. This means that there are more potential ways to access this data outside of your purview, including accidentally from family or friends who may occasionally borrow your device.
In addition, your cloud-synced notes are often stored on remote servers behind a public login, which means your credentials can be stolen and your data accessible from anywhere on Earth. One security breach to your account and all of your potentially sensitive or personal notes are exposed.
With a text file in notepad, the data is completely in your hands, stored on your local device. As long as you follow safe computer habits and keep your machine secure, the text file isn’t going anywhere unless you copy it first.
Dealing with the shortcomings of Notepad
We like Notepad, but we can’t say that it’s always the best solution for everyone. You can choose another application for general convenience. But there are ways to deal with the shortcomings of Notepad.
Not fancy text formatting.
No cloud sync or backup
It’s true: If you want text formatting features like bold, italics, or font resizing, Notepad is not the solution. However, you can use symbols and punctuation marks for simple formatting. Asterisks make great markers, tabs can form indents, and repeated dashes or equals make great line separators. And don’t forget the classic addition of emphasis using the underscore character.
If you really can’t live without bold text, try WordPad. If you need unusual page numbering, try a word processing app like Microsoft Word.
If you prefer to work in a word processing environment and also want to take advantage of cloud backup or sync capabilities, store your Notepad text files in a cloud-based file service such as Dropbox or OneDrive. Every time you click “Save” in Notepad, your changes will appear on every device that uses the cloud application.
No encryption or account-based security
Of course, text files aren’t blocked by the default encrypted account — unless you store them in an encrypted file share managed by something like VeraCrypt or Microsoft Bitlocker. And if you prefer to restrict access to your notes with a password, there are other ways to keep your notes secret, including denying use of your computer to people you don’t trust.
Lack of a search function
Sure, you can search a text file with Notepad by pressing Ctrl + F to open a search dialog box. But what if you have 500 text files and you need to find information in one of them? In that case, Windows Search comes to the rescue, allowing you to search through any number of text files.
No organizational specifics
If you want to organize your notes by concept or date, create a logical folder structure in Explorer and copy the text file to the appropriate location.