Notepad2
Notepad2 has got to be one of the most versatile word processors available today, and can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Acrobat Reader, Publisher, Apple iWork Pages, and many other popular desktop publishing programs. Notepad2 has got a small layout and is extremely fast, even if used on fairly old machines; however, the other text editors which have used the same engine as Notepad2 usually start up a little slower than Notepad2, mainly because of all the extra features the other programs have. Besides being slightly slower, Notepad2 has many other more useful features, including syntax coloring, brace completion, code completion, encoding conversion, and several other useful tools.
Although Notepad2 looks like a cross between a word processor and a text editor, it is actually a clone of the classic Notepad utility suite, and was developed by programmers who needed a portable solution for sending large emails. It started life as Notepad, but has continued to receive continuous improvements from the Notepad2 developers. The latest version of Notepad2, Notepad Ultimate, has the ability to edit Microsoft Word documents. Notepad2 was developed primarily to be a web browser replacement for Internet Explorer, using a fork of the code behind Mozilla Firefox browser.
Notepad2 is a very flexible text editor with a basic notepad like interface and powerful typing support, it is based on the Flex code editor project, but is superior in several aspects, including support for both text and source code editing, a wider range of languages and file extensions, support for multiple visual areas and a wide variety of features including syntax coloring, code completion and encoding conversion. Notepad2 can also be used as a web browser and shipped with some browser add-ons, including Greasemonkey script or Konsole script engine. Notepad2 can be run in the browser using the Java plugin. Notepad2 was created by the combined efforts of the Free Software Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and the Open Source Community. Notepad2 comes with an extensive manual and screen manual for help with usage, tips and information on the changes in Notepad2 from the previous version to the current version.
