After 41 years of being a staple in Windows, Notepad has received a long-awaited update from Microsoft, adding two essential features: autocorrect and spellcheck. Given the prevalence of spellcheck in almost every text-entry app, it might seem surprising that Notepad lacked this feature for so long. The addition was initially announced in March and gradually rolled out to Windows Insiders in April. Now, the broader Windows 11 user base has access to the updated Notepad. You might have missed the update altogether – I discovered spellcheck enabled on my PC without any explicit notifications from Windows Update. While spellcheck is now considered a standard feature in even the simplest word processors, it was once a premium feature that set Microsoft Word apart. In fact, Word didn’t get spellcheck until the early 1990s, almost a decade after its initial release. Prior to that, separate programs like Oracle’s CoAuthor were used to scan documents for errors after writing, highlighting misspellings. Notepad, however, was originally designed as a stripped-down version of Word. It debuted in 1983 as the Multi-Tool Notepad with limited functionality, only allowing bold and underline text formatting. At the time of its release, Notepad stood out for its mouse interaction, a novelty in the early 1980s. It was launched alongside the Microsoft Mouse to showcase the potential of this new input method. Over the years, Notepad has undergone several cosmetic changes but remained largely unchanged in terms of its core functionality. Recently, Microsoft has shown renewed interest in Notepad, adding numerous features beyond spellcheck and autocorrect. This includes the adoption of dark mode, tabs, a history feature, and even Copilot integration. Many of these updates seem to stem from the recent discontinuation of WordPad after nearly 30 years. Now, with the red squiggly lines indicating misspelled words, users can add unknown words to their dictionaries. Notepad settings allow users to disable spellcheck or toggle it for different file types. Similarly, autocorrect also has a toggle switch. These additions mark a significant shift for Notepad, transforming it from a simple text editor into a more functional and user-friendly tool.
Notepad Finally Gets Spellcheck and Autocorrect After 41 Years
