Microsoft began testing an update to the venerable Notepad program in March that included spellcheck and autocorrection to the modest but steadily expanding collection of features of the Windows software. As reported by The Verge, the update adding these capabilities to Notepad is now available to all Windows 11 users via the Microsoft Store.
Underlining words in red when they are misspelled, the spellcheck function lets users left-click the words to view a list of suggestions or right-click them to see suggestions under a separate “spelling” menu item. Changes can be undone manually or by running the Undo command; autocorrection fixes minor and apparent misspellings (typing “misspellign” instead of “misspelling,” for example).
Notepad’s settings let one disable either feature from within. If you wish to see spelling suggestions for.txt files but not for.md or.lic files, the spellchecker may also be turned on and off for a few different particular file extensions. The Verge also notes that default spellchecking is off for log files or “other file types associated with coding.” When I opened a batch file in Notepad to make changes, for instance, neither function worked.
Microsoft releases new apps incrementally, hence you might or might not be seeing the new features yet. Notepad version 11.2405.13 operating on a fully upgraded Windows 11 23H2 PC shows the spellcheck and autocorrection tools right now, but your mileage might differ.
Starting with dark mode support and other style options, Notepad has undergone significant changes over the Windows 11 era. Eventually it also included a tabbed interface allowing automatically reopening of files upon program relaunching. For Notepad, these kinds of enhancements rank as “major” as, for years, it had only received somewhat tiny under-the-hood upgrades (when it was being updated at all).
As Microsoft gets ready to quit delivering WordPad with Windows 11, the Notepad enhancements show promise. Originally Windows’ preinstalled basic word processor, WordPad has had few (if any) notable upgrades since Windows 7’s 2009 release. Although WordPad is still available in Windows 11 22H and 23H2, it is not included in present iterations of the forthcoming Windows 11 24H2 release. Users searching for basic word processing after WordPad disappears will have to resort to the more-capable Notepad, the free-to-use online edition of Microsoft Word, or another free option such as LibreOffice (which is my favorite word processor app. Most of the articles in this web site are written with LibreOffice).