This article provides basic comparisons for common text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the Category of text editor features and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or necessarily all-inclusive.
Feature comparisons are made between stable versions of software, not the upcoming versions or beta releases – and are exclusive of any add-ons, extensions or external programs (unless specified in footnotes).
They can be used as text editors, but they have more formatting features than simple text editors. You can add images and tables, change fonts and color, and insert hyperlinks. AbiWord runs on Windows and Linux and can read and write OpenOffice.org documents, Microsoft Word documents, WordPerfect documents, Rich Text Format documents, and HTML web pages. (Best video editing software for Mac, Price: $299.99) Supported platforms: Mac only FCP or Final Cut Pro is a premium software developed by Apple Inc. For Mac computers. WriteRoom (Mac, free, $24.99 for full version): WriteRoom is a full-screen editor for Mac that specializes in getting the words down. It features full syncing between computers and has spawned several clones.
- 2Operating system support
- 4Document interface
- 6Programming features
- 8Key bindings
Overview[edit]
Name | Creator | First public release | Latest stable version | Latest Release Date | Programming language | Cost (US$) | Software license | Open source | CLI available | Minimum installed size |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | Rob Pike | 1993 | Plan 9 and Inferno | C | Free | LPL (OSI approved) | Yes | |||
AkelPad | Alexey Kuznetsov, Alexander Shengalts | 2003 | 4.9.8 | 2016-07-18 | C | Free | BSD | Yes | ||
Alphatk | Vince Darley | 1999 | 8.3.3 | 2004-12-10 | $40 | Proprietary, with BSD components | No | |||
Aquamacs | David Reitter | 2005 | 3.3 | 2016-09-20 | C, Emacs Lisp | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
Atom | GitHub | 2014 | 1.38.2 | 2019-06-17 | HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++ | Free | MIT | Yes | No | ~ 150 MB |
BBEdit | Rich Siegel | 1992 | 12.1.3 | 2018-04-11 | Objective-C, Objective-C++ | $49.99 | Proprietary | No | ||
Bluefish | Bluefish Development Team | 1999 | 2.2.10 | 2017-01-27 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
Brackets | Adobe Systems | 2012 | 1.12 | 2018-02-05 | HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++ | Free | MIT | Yes | ||
Coda | Panic | 2007 | 2.6.6 | 2017-06-05 | Objective-C | $99 | Proprietary | No | ||
ConTEXT | ConTEXT Project Ltd | 1999 | 0.98.6 | 2009-08-14 | Object Pascal (Delphi) | Free | BSD | Yes | ||
Crimson Editor | Ingyu Kang, Emerald Editor Team | 1999 | 3.72 | 2008-05-14 | C++ | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
CudaText | UVViewSoft (alexey_t, kvichans, matthias030) | 2015 | 1.57.0 | 2018-06-25 | Object Pascal (Lazarus) | Free | MPL 2.0 | Yes | 8 MB Mac 12 MB Win 5 Mb *nix | |
E Text Editor | Alexander Stigsen | 2005 | 2.0.2 | 2010-11-30 | $46.95 | Proprietary, with BSD components | No | |||
ed | Ken Thompson | 1970 | unchanged from original | C | Free | ? | Yes | Yes | 0.04 MB | |
EditPlus | Sangil Kim | 1998 | 5.0 | 2018-03-26 | C++ | $35 | Shareware | No | ||
Editra | Cody Precord | 2007 | 0.7.20 | 2013-01-05 | Python | Free | wxWindows license | Yes | ||
EmEditor | Emurasoft, Inc. | 1997 | 18.64 | 2019-02-08 | C++ | 149.99 | Shareware | No | ||
epsilon | Lugaru Software | 1984 | 13.06 | 2016-12-06 | C | $250 | Proprietary | No | ||
gedit | GNU Project | 2000 | 3.28.2 (Win 3.20.1, Mac 3.2.6[1]) | 2018-05-09 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
Geany | Enrico Tröger | 2005 | 1.33 | 2018-02-25 | C, GTK2 | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
GNU Emacs | Richard Stallman | 1984 | 26.1 | 2018-05-28 | C, Emacs Lisp | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes | 11.6 MB |
JED | John E. Davis | 1992 | 0.99-19 | 2009-12-13 | C, S-Lang | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes | 3.5 MB[2] |
jEdit | Slava Pestov | 1998 | 5.4.0 | 2017-03-18 | Java | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
JOE | Joseph Allen | 1988 | 4.6 | 2018-01-10 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes | 1.3 MB |
JOVE | Johnathon Payne | 1983 | 4.16 | 1996-03-19 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
Kate | KDE Project | 2000-12 | 17.12.3 | 2018-03-08 | C++ | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
KEDIT | Mansfield Software Group, Inc. | 1983 | 1.6.1 | 2016-12-05 | C | $129 | Proprietary | No | Yes | 1.1MB |
Komodo Edit | Activestate | 2007 (open-sourced) | 10.2.3 | 2017-07-11 | Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby | Free | MPL, GPL, LGPL | Yes | ||
Komodo IDE | Activestate | 2001 | 11.0.2 | 2017-12-19 | Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby | $295 | Proprietary | No | ||
KWrite | KDE Project | 2000 | 17.12.3 | 2017-03-08 | C++ | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
LE | Alexander V. Lukyanov | 1997 | 1.16.3 | 2016-06-06 | C++ | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
Leo | Edward K. Ream | 1996 | 5.7.2 | 2018-05-07 | Python | Free | MIT | Yes | ||
Light Table | Chris Granger | 2012 | 0.8.1 | 2016-01-21 | ClojureScript | Free | MIT | Yes | ||
Metapad | Alexander Davidson | 1999 | 3.6 | 2011-05-28 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
mg | Dave Conroy | 1986 | current | C | Free | Public domain | Yes | |||
MinEd | Thomas Wolff | 1992 | 2015.25 | 2015-03-30 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
MS-DOS Editor | Microsoft | 1991 | 2.0.026 | Bundled with MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows | Proprietary | No | No | |||
Nano | Chris Allegretta | 1999 | 4.3 | 2019-06-18 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes | 0.6 MB |
ne | Sebastiano Vigna, Todd Lewis, Daniele Filaretti | 1993 | 3.1.1 | 2017-06-04 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
NEdit | Mark Edel | 1991 | 5.7 | 2017-02-08 | C | Free | GPL | Yes | ||
Notepad | Microsoft | 1985 | 6.0 | MASM (originally) | Bundled with Microsoft Windows | Proprietary | No | |||
Notepad++ | Don Ho | 2003-11-25 | 7.6.6 | 2019-04-03 | C++ | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes | |
Notepad2 | Florian Balmer | 2004-04 | 4.2.25 | 2011-05-06 | C++ | Free | BSD | Yes | ||
NoteTab | Eric Fookes, Fookes Software | 1995 | 7.2 | 2014-11-04 | Object Pascal (Delphi) | Free, €39.95 Pro | Proprietary | No | ||
nvi | Keith Bostic | 1994 | 1.79 | C | Free | BSD | Yes | |||
Peppermint | Ioannis Zafeiropoulos | 2014 | 1.4 | 2014-12-07 | Objective-C, JavaScript | $14.99 | Proprietary | No | ||
Pico | University of Washington | 1992 | 4.64 | C | Free | AL2 | Yes | |||
PolyEdit | PolySoft Solutions | 1998 | 5.4 | 2010-04-07 | $27.95 | Shareware | No | |||
PSPad | Jan Fiala | 2002 | 5.0.0 (277) | 2018-04-24 | Object Pascal (Delphi) | Free | Proprietary | No | ||
Q10 | Baara Estudio | 2007 | 1.2.21 | 2011-06-16 | ? | Free | Proprietary | No | ||
RJ TextEd | Rickard Johansson | 2004 | 13.10 | 2018-05-07 | Object Pascal (Delphi) | Free | Proprietary | No | ||
RText | Fifesoft | 2003 | 2.6.3 | 2017-04-30 | Java | Free | BSD | Yes | ||
Sam | Rob Pike | 1980s (early) | stable | C | Free | LPL (OSI approved) | Yes | |||
SciTE | Neil Hodgson | 1999 | 4.0.5 | 2018-04-10 | C++ | $41.99 for macOS. free for others | HPND | Yes | ||
SlickEdit | SlickEdit, Inc. | 1988 | 23.0.0 | 2018-10-23 | C, Slick-C | $299 | Proprietary | No | ||
Smultron | Peter Borg | 2004 | 9.2.3 | 2017-02-20 | Objective-C | $5 | Proprietary | No | ||
Source Insight | Source Dynamics | ? | 4.0.0084 | 2017-02-26 | Source Insight macro language | $239-$255 | Proprietary | No | ||
SubEthaEdit | TheCodingMonkeys | 2003 | 4.1 | 2015-02-25 | $35 commercial use | Proprietary | No | |||
Sublime Text | Jon Skinner | 2008 | 3.2.1 (Build 3207) | 2019-04-06 | C++, Objective-C++ (macOS version), Python | $80 | Proprietary | No | No | 21 MB |
TED Notepad | Juraj Simlovic | 2001 | 6.1.1 | 2016-12-04 | C | Free | Freeware | No | ||
Textadept | Mitchell | 2007 | 9.6 | 2017-11-01 | C, Lua | Free | MIT | Yes | ||
TextEdit | Apple Inc. | 2001 | 1.13 | 2017-07-16 | Free (also bundled with macOS) | New BSD | Yes | |||
TextMate | MacroMates | 2004-10-10 | 1.5.11 | 2012-07-13 | Objective-C++ | $53 (€39) | Proprietary, with MIT components. Version 2 released under GPLv3 | Yes (from version 2) | ||
TextPad | Helios Software Solutions | 1992 | 8.1.2 | 2017-03-07 | $30.00 (£16.50) | Shareware | No | |||
TextWrangler | Bare Bones Software | 2003 | 5.5.1 | 2016-07-27 | Free | Proprietary | No | |||
The SemWare Editor | Sammy Mitchell | 1985-11 | 4.4 | 2005-06-24 | C, SAL | $99 | Proprietary | No | ||
UltraEdit | IDM Computer Solutions | 1994 | 25.0 | 2018-03-12 | C++ | $99.95 | Proprietary | No | ||
VEDIT | Ted Green, Greenview Data | 1980 | 6.24.2 | 2015-01-12 | Assembly, C | $89 standard, $239 Pro64 | Proprietary | No | Yes | 0.6 MB |
vi | Bill Joy | 1976 | 3.7 | C | Free | BSD or CDDL | Yes | Yes | ||
Vim | Bram Moolenaar | 1991 | 8.1 | 2018-05-12 | C, Vim script | Free | GPL compatible | Yes | Yes | 2.2 MB |
Visual Studio Code | Microsoft | 2015 | 1.33.0 | 2019-04-04 | JavaScript, C#, C++, JSON, HTML, PHP, Python, Markdown, TypeScript, CSS | Free | MIT | Yes | 180-200 MB | |
XEmacs | Lucid Inc. | 1991 | 21.4.22 | 2009-01-30 | C, Emacs Lisp | Free | GPL | Yes |
Operating system support[edit]
![List Of Text Editors For Mac List Of Text Editors For Mac](https://switchgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Best-Text-Editors-for-Mac-8.jpg)
This section lists the operating systems that different editors can run on. Some editors run on additional operating systems that are not listed.
Cross-platform[edit]
Name | Microsoft Windows | macOS | Linux | BSD | Unix | OpenVMS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | Partial[3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
AkelPad | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Alphatk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Aquamacs | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Atom | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Arachnophilia | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
BBEdit | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Brackets | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Coda | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
ConTEXT | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Crimson Editor | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
CudaText | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
ed | Partial[4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
EditPlus | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Editra | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
EmEditor | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
epsilon | Yes | Yes[5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Geany | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
gedit | Yes | Yes[1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JED | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
jEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
JOE | Yes[dubious] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
JOVE | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Kate | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
KEDIT | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Komodo Edit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
Komodo IDE | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
KWrite | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
LE | Partial[4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Light Table | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Metapad | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
mg | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
MinEd | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Nano | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
ne | Partial[4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
NEdit | Partial[4] | Yes[6] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notepad | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Notepad++ | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Notepad2 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
NoteTab | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
nvi | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Peppermint | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Pico | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
PSPad | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Q10 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
RJ TextEd | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
RText | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Sam | Partial[3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
SciTE | Yes | Yes[6] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Smultron | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Source Insight | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
SubEthaEdit | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Sublime Text | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
TED Notepad | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Textadept | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
TextEdit | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
TextMate | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
TextPad | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
TextWrangler | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
UltraEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Ulysses (text editor) | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
vi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Vim | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
![Text Text](https://switchgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Best-Text-Editors-for-Mac-12.jpg)
Natural language (localization)[edit]
Text Editor | Languages supported |
---|---|
Acme | English |
AkelPad | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish |
Alphatk | English |
Aquamacs | English |
Atom | English |
BBEdit | English |
Brackets | English, German, French, Polish(Outdated), Korean, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish(Outdated) |
Coda | English, German, French, Spanish |
ConTEXT | English, German, French, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish |
Crimson Editor | English |
CudaText | Main: English. Addons: Japanese, French, Polish, Korean, Hungarian (2018), Greek, German (2017), and 9 others |
E Text Editor | English |
ed | |
EditPlus | English, Korean |
Editra | English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
EmEditor | English, German, French, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish |
epsilon | English |
Geany | English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi |
gedit | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi |
GNU Emacs | English |
JED | English |
jEdit | English |
JOE[7] | English, German, French |
JOVE | English |
Kate[8] | English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
KEDIT | English |
Komodo Edit | English |
KWrite | English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish |
Metapad[9] | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
mined | English |
MS-DOS Editor | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
Nano | English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese |
NEdit | English |
Notepad | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi |
Notepad++ | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi |
Notepad2 | English, German, French, Polish, Spanish, Swedish |
NoteTab | English |
nvi | English |
Peppermint | English |
Pico | English, Italian |
PolyEdit | English |
PSPad | English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
Q10 | English, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish |
RJ TextEd | English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
RText | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
Sam | English |
SciTE[10] | English, German, French (Outdated (1.72)), Polish, Japanese (Outdated (1.62)), Italian, Dutch (Outdated (1.67)), Portuguese (Outdated (1.63)), Spanish, Swedish |
SlickEdit | English |
Smultron | English, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish |
Source Insight | English |
SubEthaEdit | English |
SublimeText | English |
TED Notepad | English |
TextEdit | English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish |
TextMate | English |
TextPad | English, German, French, Polish (Outdated (4.7.3)), Japanese, Italian(Outdated (4.7.3)), Dutch (Outdated (4.7.3)), Spanish (Outdated (4.7.3)), Portuguese (Outdated (4.7.3)) |
TextWrangler | English |
The SemWare Editor | English |
UltraEdit | English, German, French, Korean, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese |
VEDIT | English |
vi | English |
Vim | English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Afrikaans, Catalan, Czech, Esperanto, Finnish, Irish, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese |
Visual Studio Code | English, Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish |
XEmacs | English |
Document interface[edit]
Name | Multiple instances | Single document window splitting | MDI: overlappable windows | MDI: tabbed document interface | MDI: window splitting |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
AkelPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Alphatk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Atom | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
BBEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Brackets | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Coda | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ConTEXT | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Crimson Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
CudaText | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
E Text Editor | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
ed | Yes | No | No | No | No |
EditPlus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Editra | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? |
EmEditor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Geany | Yes | Plug-in | No | Yes | No |
gedit | Yes | Plug-in[11] | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[12] |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[13][14] | Yes |
JED | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
jEdit | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
JOE | Yes | Yes | No | No[15] | Yes |
JOVE | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Kate | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
KEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Komodo Edit | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Komodo IDE | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
KWrite | Yes | No | No | No | No |
LE | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Light Table | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Metapad | Yes | No | No | No | No |
mined | Yes | No | No[16] | Yes | No |
MS-DOS Editor | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Nano | Yes | No | No | No | No |
NEdit | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Notepad | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Notepad++ | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | 2 windows |
Notepad2 | Yes | No | No | No | No |
NoteTab | Yes | ? | No | Yes | 2 windows |
nvi | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Peppermint | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Pico | Yes | No | No | No | No |
PolyEdit | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
PSPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Q10 | No | No | No | No | No |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RText | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Sam | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
SciTE | Yes | No | No | Yes[17] | No |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Smultron | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Source Insight | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Sublime Text | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
TED Notepad | ? | ? | ? | No | ? |
TextEdit | Yes | No | No | No | No |
TextMate | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
TextPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextWrangler | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
UltraEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
vi | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Vim | Yes | Yes | Yes[18] | Yes[19] | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Multiple instances | Single document window splitting | MDI: overlappable windows | MDI: tabbed document interface | MDI: window splitting |
Notes[edit]
- Multiple instances: multiple instances of the program can be opened simultaneously for editing multiple files. Applies both for single document interface (SDI) and multiple document interface (MDI) programs. Also applies for program that has a user interface that looks like multiple instances of the same program (such as some versions of Microsoft Word).
- Single document window splitting: window can be split to simultaneously view different areas of a file.
- MDI: Overlappable windows: each opened document gets its own fully movable window inside the editor environment.
- MDI: Tabbed document interface: multiple documents can be viewed as tabs in a single window.
- MDI: Window splitting: splitting application window to show multiple documents (non-overlapping windows).
Basic features[edit]
Spell checking | Regex-based find & replace | Encoding conversion | Newline conversion | Multiple undo/redo | Rectangular block selection | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | external[20] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
AkelPad | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Alphatk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Atom | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
BBEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Brackets | Plug-in | Yes | Plug-in | No | Yes | Yes |
Coda | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ConTEXT | No | Partial[21] | Partial[22] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Crimson Editor | Instant/live (like Firefox) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
CudaText | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
E Text Editor | Plug-in[23] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ed | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
EditPlus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Editra | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes |
EmEditor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Geany | Plug-in[24] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
gedit | Yes[25] | Plug-in[26] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[27] |
GNU Emacs | Plug-in[28] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JED | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
jEdit | Plug-in[29] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JOE | Plug-in[30] | Partial[31] | No[32] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JOVE | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Kate | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KEDIT | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Komodo Edit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Komodo IDE | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KWrite | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
LE | No | Yes | No[33] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Light Table | Plug-in[34] | ? | No | No | Yes | ? |
Metapad | Partial[35] | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
mg | No | Yes[36] | No | Partial | Yes[36] | No |
MinEd | No | Yes[37] | Yes[38] | Yes[39] | No | Yes |
MS-DOS Editor | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Nano | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Spell checking | Regex-based find & replace | Encoding conversion | Newline conversion | Multiple undo/redo | Rectangular block selection | |
ne | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
NEdit | Plug-in[40] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notepad | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Notepad++ | Yes[41] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notepad2 | No | Limited[42] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
NoteTab | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
nvi | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? |
Peppermint | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pico | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
PolyEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
PSPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Q10 | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RText | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Sam | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
SciTE | No | Limited[42] | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Smultron | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Source Insight | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[43] |
Sublime Text | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TED Notepad | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
TextEdit | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextMate | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextWrangler | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
UltraEdit | Yes | Limited[44] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VEDIT | Yes[45] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
vi | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Vim | Yes[46] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
XEmacs | Plug-in[28] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Spell checking | Regex-based find & replace | Encoding conversion | Newline conversion | Multiple undo/redo | Rectangular block selection |
Programming features[edit]
Syntax highlighting | Function list | Symbol database (ctags or equiv.) | Brace matching | Auto indentation | Auto completion | Code folding | Text folding | Compiler integration | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | No | external[20] | external[20] | Yes | Yes | Partial[47] | No | No | external[20] |
AkelPad | Plug-in | Plug-in | Plug-in | Plug-in | Yes | Plug-in | Plug-in | No | Plug-in |
Alphatk | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Atom | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
BBEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bluefish | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[48] |
Brackets | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
Coda | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
ConTEXT | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Crimson Editor | Yes | No | Partial[49] | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
CudaText | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in | Yes | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
E Text Editor | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ed | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | external[50] |
EditPlus | Yes | Yes[51] | Partial[49] | Yes | Yes | Yes[52] | Yes | No | Yes |
Editra | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? |
EmEditor | Yes | Plug-in | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[53] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Geany | Yes | Yes | Yes[54] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | No | Yes |
gedit | Yes | Plug-in | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Plug-in | No | Plug-in[55] | Yes[56] |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JED | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
jEdit | Yes | Plug-in | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
JOE | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No | Yes |
JOVE | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
Kate | Yes | Plug-in | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
KEDIT | Yes | No | Macro | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Komodo Edit | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Komodo IDE | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KWrite | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
LE | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No[57] |
Light Table | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Partial[58] |
Metapad | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
mined | Yes[59] | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
MS-DOS Editor | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Nano | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Syntax highlighting | Function list | Symbol database (ctags or equiv.) | Bracket matching | Auto indentation | Auto completion | Code folding | Text folding | Compiler integration | |
ne | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
NEdit | Yes | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in | No | No | Yes |
Notepad | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Notepad++ | Yes | Yes[60] | Yes[61][62] | Yes | Yes | Yes[63] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notepad2 | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
NoteTab | Partial[64] | ? | ? | No | ? | Yes | ? | ? | Yes |
nvi | No | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Peppermint | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pico | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
PolyEdit | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
PSPad | Yes | Yes | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Q10 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RText | Yes | Plug-in | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Sam | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | external[65] |
SciTE | Yes | No[66] | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Smultron | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Source Insight | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Limited |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Sublime Text | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[67] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TED Notepad | No | ? | ? | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
TextEdit | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
TextMate | Yes | Yes | Plug-in | Yes | Yes | Yes[68] | Yes | Yes | No |
TextPad | Yes | No | Plug-in[69] | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
TextWrangler | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[70] |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | Yes | Plug-in[71] | Yes | Yes | Yes[72] | Partial[73] | No | Yes |
UltraEdit | Yes | Yes | Partial[74] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[75] | No | No | Yes |
vi | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Vim | Yes | Plug-in[76] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
XEmacs | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Syntax highlighting | Function list | Symbol database (ctags or equiv.) | Bracket matching | Auto indentation | Auto completion | Code folding | Text folding | Compiler integration |
Notes[edit]
- Syntax highlighting: Displays text in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms.
- Function list: Lists all functions from current file in a window or sidebar and allows user to jump directly to the definition of that function for example by double-clicking on the function name in the list. More or less realtime (does not require creating a symbol database, see below).
- Symbol database: Database of functions, variable and type definitions, macro definitions etc. in all the files belonging to the software being developed. The database can be created by the editor itself or by an external program such as ctags. The database can be used to instantly locate the definition even if it is in another file.
- Bracket matching: Find matching parenthesis or bracket, taking into account nesting.
- Auto indentation: May refer to just simple indenting to the same level as the line above, or intelligent indenting that is language specific, e.g., ensuring a given indent style.
- Compiler integration: Allows running compilers/linkers/debuggers from within editor, capturing the compiler output and stepping through errors, automatically moving cursor to corresponding location in the source file.
Extra features[edit]
Best Text Editor On Mac
Text shell integration | Graphical shell integration | Macro language | Collaborative editing | Large file support | Long line support | Multi-line regex support[77] | Search in files | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | Yes | Yes | Extensible | No | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
AkelPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | memory | Yes | Yes | Plug-in |
Alphatk | Yes | Yes | Yes[78] | No | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | memory | ? | Yes | ? |
Atom | No[79] | ? | Plug-in[80] | Yes | No 2-5 MB [81] | 100B [82] | No [83] | Yes |
BBEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes[84] | No | memory[85] | ? | Yes | Yes |
Bluefish | No | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
Brackets | Yes | Yes | Extensible | No | No | ? | Partial | Yes |
Coda | Yes | No | Yes[86] | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
ConTEXT | No | Yes | Yes | No | memory[87] | ? | No | ? |
Crimson Editor | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | No | ? |
CudaText | No | No | Plug-in | No | ? | ? | Yes | Plug-in |
E Text Editor | Yes | Yes | No[88] | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? |
ed | Yes | No | Yes | via mkfifo | ? | ? | ? | Yes |
EditPlus | ? | Yes | Yes | No | memory | ? | Yes | Yes |
Editra | ? | ? | ? | ? | 2 GB | ? | ? | ? |
EmEditor | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
Geany | Yes | ? | Plug-in | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
gedit | Yes | Yes | Yes[89] | Plug-in | No | ? | No | No |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2 GB on 64-bit OS[90][91] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JED | Yes | No | Yes | No | memory[92] | Yes | No | Plug-ins |
jEdit | Yes | No | Yes | No | No (heap)[93] | ? | Yes | Yes |
JOE | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes[citation needed] | ? | ? | Yes[94] |
JOVE | Yes | No | No | No | memory | ? | No | No |
Kate | Yes | Yes | No | No | No[95] | Maybe[96] | Yes | Plug-in |
KEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | 10Kb | Yes | No |
Komodo Edit | ? | ? | Yes[97] | No | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
Komodo IDE | ? | ? | Yes[97] | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
KWrite | No | No | No | No | No[95] | No[98] | No | ? |
LE | Yes | No | No | No[99] | memory[100] | ? | Yes | ? |
Light Table | No | Yes | No | No | ? | ? | No | Yes |
Metapad | Yes | Yes | No | No | memory[101] | ? | No | No |
mined | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
EDIT (MS-DOS) | No | No | No | No | No (64~300 KB) | No | No | No |
EDIT (DR-DOS) | No | No | No | No | 2 GB, for as long as there is disk swap space for two temporary files | Yes | No | No |
Nano | Yes | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Text shell integration | Graphical shell integration | Macro language | Collaborative editing | Large file support | Long line support | Multi-line regex support | Search in files | |
NEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes | ? |
Notepad | Yes | Yes | No | No | memory | ? | No | No |
Notepad++ | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [102] | 2GB [103] | Yes [104] | Yes | Yes |
Notepad2 | No | No | No | No | memory[105] | ? | No | ? |
NoteTab | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No | ? | Yes[106] | ? |
nvi | Yes | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Peppermint | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pico | ? | ? | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | ? |
PolyEdit | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? | Yes | ? |
PSPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | memory[107] | ? | with plug-in | Yes |
Q10 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes | ? |
RText | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes | ? |
Sam | Yes | No | Yes | No | ? | ? | Yes | external[65] |
SciTE | ? | ? | Yes | No | No | ? | No | Yes |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 2 TB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Smultron | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Source Insight | ? | ? | Yes | No | ? | ? | No | ? |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
TED Notepad | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
TextEdit | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? |
TextMate | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes | ? |
TextPad | No | Yes | Yes | No | memory[108] | ? | Yes | Yes |
TextWrangler | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | memory[85] | ? | Yes | ? |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes Only in special DOS multi-user version | 2 GB | Yes | ? | Yes |
UltraEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
vi | Yes | No | Yes | No | approx. 65 MB | ? | Yes | Yes |
Vim | Yes | Yes | Yes | with plug-in[109] | memory[110] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | Yes | Yes | with plug-in[111] | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | on 64-bit OS[90] | ? | Yes | Yes |
Text shell integration | Graphical shell integration | Macro language | Collaborative editing | Large file support | Long line support | Multi-line regex support | Search in files |
Large file support:
Yes | = Larger than 4 GiB (LFS) | 2 GB | = Larger than 1 GB, not limited by memory |
memory | = Limited by available memory | No (64 KB) | = Some limit less than available memory (give max size if known) |
In general, most text editors do not support large text files. Some restrict themselves to available in-core RAM while others use sophisticated virtual memory management techniques and paging algorithms.[112]
Search in files:Perform search (and possibly replace) in multiple files on disk, for example on a sub-directory and recursively all the directories below it.Similar to grep.
Key bindings[edit]
Support for custom key bindings.
Dynamically customizable | IBM CUA | macOS | Vi | Emacs | Pico | WordStar | WordPerfect | Brief | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
AkelPad | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Alphatk | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Aquamacs | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
BBEdit[113][114] | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Bluefish | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Brackets | Yes | Partial | Yes | Plug-in | Plug-in | No | No | No | No |
Coda | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
ConTEXT | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Crimson Editor | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
CudaText | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
E Text Editor | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
ed | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
EditPlus | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Editra | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
EmEditor | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
epsilon | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes |
Geany | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
gedit | Yes[115] | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial[116] | Yes[117] | Yes[118] | Yes[118] |
JED | Yes | Partial[119] | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | Yes |
jEdit | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
JOE[120] | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
JOVE | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes[121] | No | No |
LE | Yes | ? | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Light Table | Yes | Partial | ? | Plug-in | Plug-in | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Kate | Yes | No | No | Yes[122] | No | No | No | No | No |
KEDIT | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Komodo Edit | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Komodo IDE | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
KWrite | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Metapad | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
mg | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
mined | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
MS-DOS Editor | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Nano | Yes | No | No | No | Partial[123] | Yes | No | No | No |
NEdit | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Notepad | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Notepad++ | Partial | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Notepad2 | No | ? | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
NoteTab | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
nvi | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Peppermint | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Pico | No | No | No | No | Partial[123] | Yes | No | No | No |
PolyEdit | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
PSPad | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Q10 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RText | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Sam | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
SciTE | Partial[124] | ? | ? | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
SlickEdit | Yes[125] | Yes | Yes[126] | Partial[127] | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
Smultron | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Source Insight | Yes | ? | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
SubEthaEdit | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Sublime Text | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
TED Notepad | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
TextEdit | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
TextMate | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
TextPad | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
TextWrangler[113][128] | Yes | ? | Yes | No | Yes | No | ? | ? | ? |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
UltraEdit | Yes | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
VEDIT | Yes | Yes | No | No[129] | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
vi | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Vim | Partial | Plug-in[130] | Partial|[131] | Yes[132] | Partial[133] | No | No | No | Plug-in[134] |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | No | Yes | Plug-in[135] | Plug-in[136] | No | No | No | No |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial[116] | Yes[117] | Yes[118] | Yes[118] |
Dynamically customizable | IBM CUA | macOS | Vi | Emacs | Pico | WordStar | WordPerfect | Brief |
Notes, bugs[edit]
- Vim: custom maps of Ctrl-1 . Ctrl-9, Ctrl-0 cannot be set, nor is Control-Shift-<char> distinguished from Ctrl-<char>.[137][138]
- Notepad++: custom shortcuts of Shift-<char> cannot be set, they need an added modifier such as Ctrl or Alt. i.e. SCI_LINESCROLLUP cannot be bound to 'Shift-I' as the 'Add' button is greyed out.
- Emacs and Pico: pico uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc.
Protocol support[edit]
Support for editing files over a network or the Internet.
FTP | HTTP | SSH | WebDAV | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | No | No | No | No |
AkelPad | No | No | No | No |
Alphatk | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[139] |
BBEdit | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Brackets | Plug-in | No | No | No |
Coda | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ConTEXT | No[140] | ? | No[140] | ? |
Crimson Editor | Yes | No | No | No |
CudaText | Yes | No | No | No |
E Text Editor | Yes | No | No | No |
ed | No | No | No | No |
EditPlus | Yes | No | No | No |
Editra | ? | ? | ? | ? |
EmEditor | No | No | No | No |
Geany | No | No | No | No |
gedit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JED | No | No | No | No |
jEdit | Plug-in[141] | Yes[142] | Plug-in[141] | Plug-in. |
JOE | No | No | No | No |
JOVE | No | No | No | No |
LE | No | No | No | No |
Kate | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KEDIT | No | No | No | No |
Komodo IDE | FTP, FTPS, SFTP | No | Yes | No |
KWrite | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Metapad | No | No | No | No |
mined | ? | ? | ? | ? |
MS-DOS Editor | No | No | No | No |
Nano | No | No | Yes | No |
FTP | HTTP | SSH | WebDAV | |
NEdit | No | No | No | No |
Notepad | No | No | No | No |
Notepad++ | Plug-in for FTP, FTPS, FTPES, SFTP | No | Plug-in | No |
Notepad2 | No | No | No | No |
NoteTab | No[143] | ? | No[143] | ? |
nvi | No | No | No | No |
Peppermint | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Pico | No | No | No | No |
PolyEdit | No | No | No | No |
PSPad | Yes | No | No | No |
Q10 | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | FTP, SFTP | No | Yes | No |
RText | No | No | No | No |
Sam | No | No | No | No |
SciTE | No | No | No | No |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Smultron | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Source Insight | No | No | No | No |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | No | No | No |
Sublime text | Plug-in [144] | Plug-in [145] | Yes | Plug-in [146] |
TED Notepad | No[147] | ? | No[147] | ? |
TextEdit | No | No | No | No |
TextMate | Yes[139] | No | No | No |
TextPad | No | No | No | No |
TextWrangler | Yes[148] FTP, SFTP | No | Yes | No |
The SemWare Editor | No | No | No | No |
UltraEdit | Yes | No | Yes | No |
VEDIT | Yes | No | No | No |
vi | No | No | No | No |
Vim | Plug-in[149] | Plug-in[149] | Plug-in[149] | Plug-in[149] |
Visual Studio Code | Plug-in[150] | Plug-in(limited?)[150] | Plug-in[150] | Plug-in[150] |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
FTP | HTTP | SSH | WebDAV |
Unicode and other character encodings[edit]
To support specified character encoding, the editor must be able to load, save, view and edit text in the specific encoding and not destroy any characters. For UTF-8 and UTF-16, this requires internal 16-bit character support.
Partial support is indicated if: 1) the editor can only convert the character encoding to internal (8-bit) format for editing.2) If some encodings are supported only in some platforms.3) If the editor can only display specific character set (such as OEM) by loading corresponding font, but does not support keyboard entry for that character set.
ASCII | ISO-8859 | DOS (OEM) | EBCDIC | UTF-8 | UTF-16 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acme | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
AkelPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Alphatk | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
BBEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Brackets | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Coda | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
ConTEXT | Yes | Yes | Partial[151] | No | No | No |
Crimson Editor | Yes | Yes | Partial[151] | No | Partial | No |
CudaText | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
E Text Editor | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
ed | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | No |
EditPlus | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
Editra | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
EmEditor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Geany | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
gedit | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[152] | Yes[153] |
JED | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Partial[154] |
jEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JOE | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | No |
JOVE | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
LE | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | No |
Kate | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
KEDIT | Yes | Yes | Partial[151] | No | No | No |
Komodo Edit | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Komodo IDE | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
KWrite | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
Metapad | Yes | Yes | Partial[151] | No | No | No |
mined | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
MS-DOS Editor | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Nano | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | No |
ASCII | ISO-8859 | DOS (OEM) | EBCDIC | UTF-8 | UTF-16 | |
NEdit | Yes | ? | ? | ? | No | No |
Notepad | Yes | Yes | Partial[151] | No | Yes | Yes |
Notepad++ | Yes | Yes | No | Plug-in? | Yes | Yes |
Notepad2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
NoteTab | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Partial[155] | Partial[155] |
nvi | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes[156] | No |
Peppermint | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
Pico | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
PolyEdit | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
PSPad | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
Q10 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RText | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[157] | Yes | Yes |
Sam | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | No |
SciTE[158] | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Smultron | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
Source Insight | Yes | ? | ? | ? | No | No |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Sublime Text | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TED Notepad | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
TextEdit | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
TextMate | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes |
TextPad | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Partial[159] | Partial[159] |
TextWrangler | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | Yes[160] | Partial[151] | Plug-in | No | No |
UltraEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial[161] | Partial[161] |
vi | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | No |
Vim | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial[162] | Yes | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | Yes | Yes | No[163] | Yes | Yes |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes[164] | Yes |
ASCII | ISO-8859 | DOS (OEM) | EBCDIC | UTF-8 | UTF-16 |
Right-to-left and bidirectional text[edit]
Support for Right-To-Left (RTL) texts is necessary for editing some languages like Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Yiddish and the mixture of left to right (LTR) and RTL known as bi-directional (BiDi) support.
Depending on the algorithm used in the programs it might only render the bidirectional text correctly but may not be able to edit them. (e.g. Notepad++ 5.1.3 shows bidirectional texts correctly but cannot edit it and user should change the text direction to RTL to be able to edit RTL texts correctly.)
Right-to-left (RTL) | Bi-directional (Bidi) | |
---|---|---|
Acme | No | No |
AkelPad | No | No |
Alphatk | ? | ? |
Aquamacs | ? | ? |
Atom | No | No |
BBEdit | No | No |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes |
Brackets | ? | ? |
Coda | ? | ? |
ConTEXT | ? | ? |
Crimson Editor | ? | ? |
E Text Editor | ? | ? |
ed | ? | ? |
EditPlus | No | No |
Editra | ? | ? |
EmEditor | No | No |
Geany | ? | ? |
gedit | Yes | Yes |
GNU Emacs | Yes | Yes[165] |
JED | ? | ? |
jEdit | No | No |
JOE | ? | ? |
JOVE | No | No |
LE | ? | ? |
Kate | Yes | Yes |
KEDIT | No | No |
Komodo Edit | No | No |
Komodo IDE | No | No |
KWrite | ? | ? |
Metapad | ? | ? |
MS-DOS Editor | ? | ? |
mined | Yes[166] | Yes[166] |
Nano | ? | ? |
RTL | Bidi | |
NEdit | ? | ? |
Notepad | Yes | Yes |
Notepad++ | Yes | Partial[167] |
Notepad2 | No | No |
NoteTab | ? | ? |
nvi | ? | ? |
Peppermint | No | No |
Pico | ? | ? |
PolyEdit | ? | ? |
PSPad | ? | ? |
Q10 | ? | ? |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes |
RText | ? | ? |
Sam | No | No |
SciTE | No | No |
SlickEdit | ? | ? |
Smultron | ? | ? |
Source Insight | No | No |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | Yes |
Sublime Text | No | No |
TED Notepad | ? | ? |
TextEdit | Yes | Yes |
TextMate | No | No |
TextPad | ? | ? |
TextWrangler | No | No |
The SemWare Editor | No | No |
UltraEdit | No | No |
VEDIT | ? | ? |
vi | ? | ? |
Vim | Yes | through terminal support |
Visual Studio Code | No | No |
XEmacs | ? | ? |
RTL | Bidi |
Newline support[edit]
Windows (CR/LF) | Unix-like systems (including macOS[168]) (LF) | Classic Mac OS (CR) | |
---|---|---|---|
Acme | Yes | Yes | Yes |
AkelPad | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Alphatk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Aquamacs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Atom | Yes | Yes | No |
BBEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bluefish | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Brackets | Yes | Yes | No |
Coda | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ConTEXT | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Crimson Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
CudaText | Yes | Yes | Yes |
E Text Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ed | No | Yes | No |
EditPlus | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Editra | Yes | Yes | Yes |
EmEditor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Geany | Yes | Yes | Yes |
gedit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
GNU Emacs[169] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JED | Yes | Yes | Yes |
jEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JOE[170] | Yes | Yes | No |
JOVE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Kate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Komodo Edit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Komodo IDE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KWrite | Yes | Yes | Yes |
LE | Yes | Yes | No |
Metapad | Yes | Yes | ? |
MS-DOS Editor | Yes | No | No |
mined | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Nano | Yes | Yes | Yes |
NEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notepad | Yes | No | No |
Notepad++ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notepad2 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
NoteTab | Yes | Yes | Yes |
nvi | ? | Yes | ? |
Peppermint | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pico | Yes | Yes | Yes |
PolyEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
PSPad | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Q10 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RJ TextEd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RText | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Sam | ? | ? | ? |
SciTE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SlickEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Smultron | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Source Insight | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SubEthaEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Sublime Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TED Notepad | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextMate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextPad | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TextWrangler | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The SemWare Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
UltraEdit | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VEDIT | Yes | Yes | Yes |
vi | No | Yes | No |
Vim | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Visual Studio Code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
XEmacs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Windows (CR/LF) | Unix-like systems (including macOS) (LF) | Classic Mac OS (CR) |
See also[edit]
- Comparison of
- Lists of
- outliners for
Notes and references[edit]
- ^ abGEdit, when installed from MacPorts, runs in X11 and, therefore, does not have a native look and feel. However, precompiled native macOS binaries for GEdit may be downloaded from the GEdit project page, or from the GEdit FTP download server.
- ^Includes 1.34M S-Lang Runtime
- ^ abNo native support, available as a part of the Inferno port for Windows.
- ^ abcdRequires Cygwin to run on Windows.
- ^'Epsilon version 13'.
- ^ abgedit, NEdit, and SciTE run in the X11 window environment, and therefore do not use the native Aqua look-and-feel when running on macOS.
- ^'JOE - Joe's own editor'. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /po. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
- ^'KDE Localization - Apps » stable » kate.po'.
- ^'Metapad language plugins'.
- ^'SciTE in languages other than English'.
- ^gedit supports single document window splitting via plug-ins. [1].
- ^gedit supports multiple document window splitting via plug-ins. [2].
- ^GNU Emacs can use a tabbed document interface in a non OS-native way, using the tabbar plug-in.
- ^GNU Emacs can support a tabbed document interface modelled after GNU Screen using the elscreen package.
- ^JOE supports editing multiple files but only seeing one of them, and switching to others via Ctrl+K+N, which is functionally equivalent to having tabs but no visible tab bar.
- ^mined supports Copy/Paste between multiple documents in separate windows, when these documents are in separate terminal windows
- ^SciTE has a maximum number of buffers, which can only be set as high as 100.
- ^Vim Provided GVim is used.
- ^Vim version 7 supports a tabbed document interface. Earlier versions can emulate tabs through scripts, for example TabBar.
- ^ abcdAcme can invoke external commands and display their return values in order to integrate additional functionality.
- ^ConTEXT does not support regular expression backreferences in its search and replace function. [3]
- ^ConTEXT only supports converting text to UTF-16. Also, it can only use one type of new-line format if converting to UTF-16.
- ^e supports spell checking via a bundle command available at the e Bundles repository.
- ^Geany supports spell checking via a plug-inArchived 2008-09-24 at the Wayback Machine, but not for Windows at the moment.
- ^gedit supports spell checking via a plug-in, which is distributed with gedit.
- ^gedit supports Regex-based find & replace via plug-ins ([4]).
- ^'Gedit/Plugins/ColumnMode - GNOME Wiki!'. Archived from the original on 2012-01-11.Cite uses deprecated parameter
|deadurl=
(help) - ^ abEmacs supports spell checking via the external programs ispell, aspell, or Hunspell.
- ^jEdit supports spell checking via an external plug-in.
- ^JOE supports spell checking via the ispell or aspell external plug-ins.
- ^JOE uses a non-standard regular expression syntax.
- ^JOE can easily pipe text through the GNU recode(1) utility; it detects locale settings and allows editing in any encoding set up by the environment.
- ^LE can pipe text through the GNU recode(1) utility
- ^https://github.com/rschroll/lt-spelling
- ^Metapad spell checking by calling external program Aspell.
- ^ abhttp://openbsd.su/src/usr.bin/mg/re_search.c
- ^mined supports multiple lines in search and replacement expressions.
- ^mined can convert the encoding format when using the Copy & Paste feature between multiple documents (that have different encodings).
- ^mined supports new-line conversion via a command-line option or from the menu. Files with mixed newline types can be edited transparently; different kinds of new-line have different visual indications.
- ^NEdit supports spell checking via a plug-in
- ^Notepad++ 6.3.3 and above support spell checking via the DSpellCheck plug-in, which is included with the default package.
- ^ abScintilla-based editors such as SciTE, Notepad2 and Notepad++ do not support alternation (|) in regular expressions.
- ^SubEthaEdit supports advanced block editing, including multi-line typing and non-contiguous block selections.
- ^UltraEdit uses the Boost C++ regex library. While Boost supports backreferences past 9 with g{10}, UltraEdit has not yet implemented this feature.
- ^VEDIT 6.2 comes with Scribe spelling checker which has been written entirely in Vedit macro language. In addition, macro package for integrating Aspell can be downloaded here.
- ^Vim version 7 supports spell checking natively. Earlier versions require a script shown here.
- ^Acme's auto-completion only works on file names.
- ^bluefish: Configurable via the outputbox feature.
- ^ abWith external tool OpenCTags
- ^ed can invoke external commands, like a compiler.
- ^editplus: Opens in a window, not really integrated.
- ^editplus: Enabled by editing the corresponding .acp file.
- ^EmEditor Professional supports Auto Complete via plug-ins (32-bit or 64-bit).
- ^Geany uses its own tags file format, not compatible with ctags, see the manual.
- ^gedit-folding: Folding plug-in for Gedit
- ^gedit: Compiler integration: Functionality in plug-ins installed with gedit.
- ^make can be launched from the LE text editor, but the output is not captured
- ^Evaluates expressions in some dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and Javascript in realtime
- ^mined: Syntax highlighting: HTML/XML, Javascript, JSP.
- ^Notepad++ comes with Function List support, and it can be enhanced via plugins.
- ^'Supported via plugin NppTags'.
- ^'Supports DB connections via plugin 'npp.connections''.
- ^Notepad++ installs with auto complete list for multiple programming languages. Has user option to add additional personalized auto complete list(s).
- ^NoteTab: Syntax highlighting only for html documents and NoteTab clip/scripts.
- ^ abIt is possible to start external applications from inside Sam and display their return values.
- ^Function list (and stuff) available in Ru-Board build, ver 1.79.66Ru and later
- ^Available from an add-on ([5])
- ^TextMate: Auto complete: Supported language bundles
- ^Textpad uses an add-on ([6])
- ^TextWrangler can integrate with a compiler if you write a shell script that takes flag input of the code and compiles it. You place this in ~/Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Unix Support/Unix Filters/. It should show in the #! menu.
- ^TSE uses a macro
- ^The Semware Editor: Auto complete: Supported via supplied/user-created lists.
- ^The Semware Editor: Text folding: Compressed view possible.
- ^Not in the Linux version.
- ^Vedit: Auto complete: Template editing, plus 3rd party macro for expanding symbols from tags database.
- ^Vim has a popular TagList plug-in that provides a function list.
- ^Multi-line regex support Support for expressions spanning several lines (e.g. 'nn(.+)nn')
- ^Alpha Macro support via AppleScript, Tcl or text factories.
- ^GitHub: Feature Request: Integrated Shell/Terminal Access #14490
- ^atom macros
- ^Large file support #307
- ^[7] atom supported more long lines but just afther create custom bulid
- ^GitHub
- ^BBEdit Macro support via AppleScript, Perl, Python, Lasso, shell scripts or text factories.
- ^ abBBEdit and TextWrangler are technically capable of any size file, but limited practically by RAM and macOS limitation to files = 384mb. Cf. BBEdit FAQ Entry 36Archived 2007-06-09 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^Coda offers macros via AppleScript, text 'clips,' or plug-ins (Cocoa apps or any installed scripting language).
- ^ConTEXT claims Large File Support but load time is proportional to file size and a 1 GB file gave an Out of Memory error.
- ^e Macro support via Cygwin and languages like Ruby, Python, or Perl.
- ^Cssed Macro support via Python.
- ^ abEmacs: 64-bit compilation on 64-bit OS can handle 2 GB files, otherwise the limit is 512 MiB. [8]
- ^'Buffers'.
A buffer’s size cannot be larger than some maximum, which is defined by the largest buffer position representable by Emacs integers. This is because Emacs tracks buffer positions using that data type. For typical 64-bit machines, this maximum buffer size is 2^{61} - 2 bytes, or about 2 EiB. For typical 32-bit machines, the maximum is usually 2^{29} - 2 bytes, or about 512 MiB. Buffer sizes are also limited by the amount of memory in the system.
- ^'The JED Editor'(PDF).
- ^jEdit: Limited by Java heap size. jedit-users forum
- ^'JOE - Joe's Own Editor'. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /docs/man.md. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
The search covers all loaded buffers.
- ^ abkwrite-devel, Large Files open slowly due to futile Syntax-Highlighting
- ^Kate: Line length is limited by default. The limit can be removed, but long lines may cause poor performance. The Kate Handbook
- ^ ab'Macros'.
- ^Lines longer than ~700 characters frequently cause crashes. KatePart documentation (which is also the KWrite documentation, see here)
- ^LE text editor locks the file and warns if someone else has changed the file
- ^LE text editor can view and edit large files or their parts in mmap-shared mode
- ^metapad FAQ, Loading Large Files
- ^'Collaborative editing supported via plugin NppNetNote, listed in Plugins Admin'.
- ^https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/16960/text-limit
- ^'Configurable through settings'.
- ^'Notepad2 -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)'.
- ^NoteTab: Standard and Pro versions only.
- ^'PSPad Forum'.
- ^'mozillaZine: Edit large mbox files'.
- ^CoVim
- ^2GB with 32 Bits, on a 64 Bit system it depends on the available virtual memory.
- ^https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MS-vsliveshare.vsliveshare
- ^Comparison of Windows Text Editors for Large Files: Text editors for large files
- ^ ab'Bare Bones Software | BBEdit Comparison Chart'.
- ^'Bare Bones Software | Features (BBEdit)'.
- ^It is possible to customize all Gedit shortcuts because it is Gtk based.
- ^ abpico uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc. See Pico: A Unix text editorArchived 2012-09-05 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 2012-01-09.
- ^ abGNU Emacs can have Wordstar emulation, with the command M-x wordstar-mode, as found from ws-mode.el retrieved 2017-03-14. See also the 'Emulation' section of the GNU Emacs manualArchived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ abcd'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-07-22.Cite uses deprecated parameter
|deadurl=
(help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^The JED base release comes with a basic CUA emulation, but it doesn't bother to bind lots of useful editor features. Also, like some other editors, 1 side of a region must be at the cursor. The main extension collections jedmodes/jed-extra and the 'Red Project' have improved versions, tackling the former problem in particular.
- ^'JOE - Joe's Own Editor'. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /docs/man.md. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
JOE also emulates several other editors. JSTAR is a close imitation of WordStar […]. JPICO is a close imitation of the Pine mailing system's PICO editor […]. JMACS is a GNU-EMACS imitation. […] Key binding tables are defined. You can define as many as you like […].
- ^'Usenet - megalextoria'.
- ^Kate supports an optional VI Input ModeArchived 2009-02-28 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ abpico (and nano) uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc. See Pico: A Unix text editorArchived 2012-09-05 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 2012-01-09.
- ^In SciTE, custom keystrokes may be assigned to Lua scripts, external programs or lexers (highlighters).
- ^SlickEdit provides emulation of VisualStudio, Visual C++ 6, CodeWright, Epsilon and ISPF key bindings in addition to those given in the table.
- ^SlickEdit supports CodeWarrior, Xcode and BBEdit key binding emulation.
- ^SlickEdit includes support of vi key bindings, the ex command line and some, but not all Vim extensions.
- ^'Bare Bones Software | Features (TextWrangler'.
- ^Vedit: Old Unix and QNX versions could emulate Vi 100%. Windows version doesn't come with vi emulation.
- ^cua-mode.vim
- ^ViFinder
- ^Vim emulates vi keys fully when in 'compatible' mode
- ^Vim With a script such as Vimacs
- ^brief.vim
- ^Vim emulation for Visual Studio Code
- ^Basic Emacs keybindings for VS Code
- ^'Vim - General - unable to map ctrl-1'. vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- ^'Vim - General - How to map (say) Ctrl-Shift-B'. vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- ^ abAquamacs Supported via a macOS mounted volume.
- ^ abText Editor Features at ConTEXT.cx
- ^ abjEdit FTP and SFTP are supported via the FTP plug-in.
- ^jEdit: 'HTTP is supported natively'
- ^ abComparison Chart at NoteTab.com
- ^Sublime SFTP
- ^Sublime Http Requester
- ^Sublime WebDAV sync
- ^ abTED Notepad Manual
- ^Bare Bones Software | TextWrangler Tour
- ^ abcdVim Supported via netrw plug-in distributed in the standard Vim installation.
- ^ abcdhttps://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mkloubert.vscode-remote-workspace
- ^ abcdefwhen choosing e.g. Terminal font
- ^GNU Emacs: While GNU Emacs supports the UTF-8 encoding, it doesn't fully support the Unicode standard, since it doesn't fully support the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (see comment in the 'Right-to-left and bidirectional text' section below).
- ^GNU Emacs: While GNU Emacs supports the UTF-16 encoding, it doesn't fully support the Unicode standard, since it doesn't fully support the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (see comment in the 'Right-to-left and bidirectional text' section below).
- ^JEDs ms-Windows version comes with a pair of scripts that can convert UTF-16 text files (actually anything iconv can convert) to and from JED's internal UTF-8. The Red Project releases include an enhanced version of these scripts.
- ^ abAlthough NoteTab is not a native Unicode editor, you can open, edit, convert, and save such files reliably as long as all the text fits within a single ANSI code page supported by Windows.
- ^nvi Gentoo
- ^RText supports EBCDIC n z/OS and anywhere with a JVM that supports it
- ^SciTE can open files in UTF or one single-byte encoding specified in a configuration file.
- ^ abTextPad can load and save UTF-8 and UTF-16 text files, but cannot use or even preserve characters outside of the system encoding. [9]
- ^when choosing e.g. New Courier font
- ^ abVedit can convert UTF-8 and UTF-16 files to Windows character set and back. Characters not included in Windows charset can be preserved.
- ^Vim supports EBCDIC when compiled on a system that uses the EBCDIC character set.
- ^https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/49891
- ^from version 21.5.29
- ^GNU Emacs
(1) According to a comment in the source file where the bidi support is implemented (http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/bidi.c accessed August 15, 2017), GNU Emacs doesn't fully conform to the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (Unicode Annex #9, a.k.a. UAX #9) in the way it wraps the lines of a bidi paragraph: 'we are violating paragraph 3.4 of UAX#9. which mandates that line breaking shall be done before reordering each screen line separately.'
(2) According to the online GNU Emacs manual (section 22.19 Bidirectional Editing, accessed August 15, 2017), for the purpose of changing paragraph direction, 'Paragraph boundaries are empty lines, i.e., lines consisting entirely of whitespace character'. This contrasts with the otherwise ubiquitous convention of regarding the newline marker (LF on Unix derivatives, including macOS, and CR+LF on Windows) as the paragraph separator in plain text documents. However starting with version 26.0.50, the bidi paragraph separator can be customized. - ^ abmined: supports bidi in cooperation with bidi terminal (mlterm, mintty); also supports 'poor man's bidi mode' (automatic visual text order right-to-left input) in normal terminal
- ^Notepadpp: Scintilla (Notepad++'s Engine) does not really support bidirectional editing. https://sourceforge.net/p/scintilla/bugs/757/#01c9
- ^'Did Mac OS Lion switch to using line feeds (LF 'n') for line breaks instead of carriage returns (CR 'r')?'.
- ^GNU Emacs: GNU Emacs doesn't regard the newline marker as a paragraph separator in bidi texts. See comment in the 'Right-to-left and bidirectional text' section.
- ^'JOE - Joe's Own Editor'. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /docs/man.md. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
character sets must use LF (0x0A) or CR-LF (0x0D - 0x0A) as line terminators […]. […] character sets which use CR terminated lines (MACs) will not yet work.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_text_editors&oldid=914466687'
The following is a list of notable text editors.
- 3Text user interface
- 3.2Others
- 5ASCII and ANSI art
- 6Historical
Graphical and text user interface[edit]
The following editors can either be used with a graphical user interface or a text user interface.
Name | Description | Free software |
---|---|---|
Aquamacs Emacs | A distribution of GNU Emacs heavily modified to behave like a Mac program. | Yes |
Cream | A configuration of Vim. | Yes |
Elvis | A vi/ex clone with additional commands and features. | Yes |
Extensible Versatile Editor (EVE) | Default under OpenVMS. | ? |
GNU Emacs/XEmacs | Two long-existing forks of the popular Emacs programmer's editor. Emacs and vi are the dominant text editors on Unix-likeoperating systems, and have inspired the editor wars. | Yes |
Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE) | Programmer's Editor for OpenVMS implemented using TPU. | Yes |
Textadept | A modular, cross-platform editor written in C and Lua, using Scintilla.[1] | Yes |
vile (vi like Emacs) | A vi work-alike which retains the vi command-set while adding new features: multiple windows and buffers, infinite undo, colorization, scriptable expansion capabilities, etc. | Yes |
vim | A clone based on the ideas of the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface. | Yes |
Graphical user interface[edit]
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
Acme | A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike. | Free software |
AkelPad | Еditor for plain text. It is designed to be a small and fast. Many plugins. | Free software |
Alphatk | Proprietary | |
Arachnophilia | Free software | |
Atom | A modular, general-purpose editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of Chromium and Node.js. | Free software |
BBEdit | Proprietary | |
BBEdit Lite | Freeware | |
Bluefish | A web development editor. | Free software |
Brackets | A modular, web-oriented editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of the Chromium Embedded Framework. | Free software |
CodeWright | Proprietary | |
Crimson Editor | Freeware | |
CudaText | Written in Object Pascal on Lazarus (IDE), thus cross platform native GUI. | Free software |
CygnusEd (CED) | Proprietary | |
E Text Editor | Default under IBMOS/2 versions 2-4[citation needed]. | Proprietary |
Eddie | An editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and macOS. | Freeware |
EditPlus | An editor with syntax highlighting and FTP. | Proprietary |
EmEditor | Proprietary | |
Epsilon | Proprietary | |
FeatherPad | A lightweight editor based upon Qt . | Free software |
Geany | A fast and lightweight editor / IDE, uses GTK+. | Free software |
gedit | Default under GNOME.[2] | Free software |
GoldED (text editor of Cubic IDE) | Proprietary | |
GWD Text Editor | Proprietary | |
HTML Kit | Freeware | |
HxD for huge text files. | Freeware | |
iA Writer | Proprietary | |
jEdit | A free cross-platform programmer's editor written in Java, GPL licensed. | Free software |
JOVE | Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs | Free software |
JuffEd | A lightweight text editor written in Qt4. | Free software |
Kate | A basic text editor for the KDE desktop. | Free software |
Kedit | An editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM XEDIT. | Proprietary |
Kile | A user friendly TeX/LaTeX editor. | Free software |
Komodo Edit | Free software | |
KWrite | A default editor on KDE. | Free software |
Lapis | An experimental text editor allowing multiple simultaneous edits of text in a multiple selection from a few examples provided by the user. | Free software |
Leafpad | Default under LXDE.[3] and Xfce[citation needed] | Free software |
LEd – LaTeX Editor | Freeware | |
Leo | A text editor that features outlines with clones as its central tool of organization and navigation. | Free software |
Light Table | A text editor and IDE with real-time, inline expression evaluation. Intended mainly for dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and JavaScript, and for web development. | Free software |
mcedit | A text editor provided with Midnight Commander. | Free software |
Metapad | Windows Notepad replacement, GPL licensed. | Free software |
MicroEMACS | Free software | |
Mousepad | Previously the default under Xfce.[4] | Free software |
Multi-Edit | Proprietary | |
NEdit – 'Nirvana Editor' | Free software | |
Notepad | Default under Microsoft Windows. | Proprietary |
Notepad2 | Free software | |
Notepad++ | A tabbed text editor. | Free software |
NoteTab | Proprietary | |
NoteTab Light | Freeware | |
Pe | A text editor for BeOS. | Free software |
Peppermint | An editor with a CoffeeScript/JavaScript API. | Proprietary |
pluma | The default text editor of the MATE desktop environment for Linux. | Free software |
PolyEdit | Proprietary | |
Programmer's File Editor (PFE) | Freeware | |
PSPad | An editor for Microsoft Windows with various programming environments. | Freeware |
Q10 | A full screen text editor (Windows). | Freeware |
RJ TextEd | Freeware | |
RText | Free software | |
Sam | Free software | |
SciTE | Free software | |
SimpleText | Default under Classic Mac OS from version 7.5.[5] | Proprietary |
SlickEdit | Proprietary | |
Smultron | A macOS text editor. | Proprietary |
Source Insight | Proprietary | |
SubEthaEdit (formerly called Hydra) | Proprietary | |
Sublime Text | Proprietary | |
TeachText | Default under Classic Mac OS versions prior to 7.5.[6] | Proprietary |
TED Notepad | Freeware | |
Tex-Edit Plus | Proprietary | |
TextPad and Wildedit | Proprietary | |
TeXnicCenter | Free software | |
TeXShop | TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer. | Free software |
TextEdit | Default under macOS,[7]NeXTSTEP[citation needed], and GNUstep.[citation needed] | Free software |
TextMate | Free software | |
TextWrangler | Mac-only editor by Bare Bones Software, sunsetted. Final version released 09/20/2016[8], replaced by free tier of [BBEdit][9]. | Freeware |
The Hessling Editor | Free software | |
The SemWare Editor (TSE) (formerly called QEdit). | Proprietary | |
TopStyle | Proprietary | |
UltraEdit | Text and source code editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, FTP etc. Handles multi-gigabyte files. | Proprietary |
Ulysses | Proprietary | |
VEDIT | Proprietary | |
Visual Studio Code | An extensible code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running and version control. | Free software |
WinEdt | Proprietary | |
X11 Xedit | Free software | |
XEDIT | Default under VM/CMS. | Proprietary |
Yudit | Free software |
Text user interface[edit]
System default[edit]
Command | Description | License |
---|---|---|
E | is the text editor in PC DOS 6, PC DOS 7 and PC DOS 2000. | Proprietary |
ed | The default line editor on Unix since the birth of Unix. Either ed or a compatible editor is available on all systems labeled as Unix (not by default on every one). | Free software |
ED | The default editor on CP/M, MP/M, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86. | Free software |
EDIT | The default on MS-DOS 5.0 and higher and is included with all 32-bit versions of Windows that do not rely on a separate copy of DOS. Up to including MS-DOS 6.22, it only supported files up to 64 KB. | Proprietary |
EDIT | The text editor in DR DOS 6.0, Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher. Supports large files for as long as swap space is available. Version 7 and higher optionally supports a pseudo-graphics user interface named NewUI. | Proprietary |
EDIX | The text editor in Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM, Concurrent PC DOS, Concurrent DOS 386, FlexOS 286, FlexOS 386, 4680 OS, 4690 OS, S5-DOS/MT. | Proprietary |
EDITOR | The text editor in DR DOS 3.31 through DR DOS 5.0, and the predecessor of EDIT. | Proprietary |
EDLIN | A command-line based line editor introduced with 86-DOS, and the default on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT. | Proprietary |
ee | Stands for Easy Editor, is part of the base system of FreeBSD, along with vi.[10] | Free software |
nvi | (Installed as vi by default in BSD operating systems and some Linux distributions) – A free replacement for the original vi which maintains compatibility while adding some new features. | Free software |
vi | The default for Unix systems and must be included in all POSIX compliant systems[11] – One of the earliest screen-based editors, it is based on ex. | Free software |
Others[edit]
Command | Description | License |
---|---|---|
ECCE | ECCE (The Edinburgh Compatible Context Editor) is a text editor designed by Dr Hamish Dewar at Edinburgh University. | Free software |
Emacs | A screen-based editor with an embedded computer language, Emacs Lisp. Early versions were implemented in TECO, see below. | Free software |
JED | Multi-mode, multi-window editor with drop-down menus, folding, ctags support, undo, UTF-8, key-macros, autosave, etc. Multi-emulation; default is emacs. Programmable in S-Lang. | Free software |
JOE | A modern screen-based editor with a sort of enhanced-WordStar style to the interface, but can also emulate Pico. | Free software |
LE | Free software | |
mcedit | Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems. | Free software |
mg | Small and light, uses GNU/Emacs keybindings. Installed by default on OpenBSD. | Free software |
MinEd | Text editor with user-friendly interface, mouse and menu control, and extensive Unicode and CJK support; for Unix/Linux and Windows/DOS. | Free software |
Nano | A clone of Pico GPL licensed. | Free software |
ne | A minimal, modern replacement for vi. | Free software |
Pico | Free software | |
SETEDIT | A clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs. | Free software |
The SemWare Editor | (TSE for DOS) (formerly called QEdit) | Proprietary |
Zile | Free software |
vi clones[edit]
busybox vi | A small vi clone with a minimum of commands and features. | Free software |
Elvis | The first vi clone and the default vi in Minix. | Free software |
nvi | A new implementation and currently the standard vi in BSD distributions. | Free software |
STEVIE | STEVIE (ST Editor for VI Enthusiasts) for the Atari ST, the starting point for vim and xvi | Free software |
vile | Derived from an early version of Microemacs in an attempt to bring the Emacs multi-window/multi-buffer editing paradigm to vi users. First published 1991 with infinite undo, UTF-8 compatibility, multi-window/multi-buffer operation, a macro expansion language, syntax highlighting, file read and write hooks, and more. | Free software |
vim | An extended version of the vi editor, with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program source code. | Free software |
No user interface (editor libraries/toolkits)[edit]
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
Cocoa text system | Supports text components of macOS. | Proprietary |
Scintilla (editing component) | Used as the core of several text editors. | Free software |
Text Processing Utility (TPU) | Language and runtime package, developed by DEC, used to implement the Language-Sensitive Editor and Extensible Versatile Editor, Eve. | Proprietary |
ASCII and ANSI art[edit]
Editors that are specifically designed for the creation of ASCII and ANSI text art.
- ACiDDraw – designed for editing ASCII text art. Supports ANSI color (ANSI X3.64)
- JavE – ASCII editor, portable to any platform running a Java GUI
- PabloDraw – ANSI/ASCII editor allowing multiple users to edit via TCP/IP network connections
- TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor for DOS and PCBoard file format support
ASCII font editors[edit]
- FIGlet – for creating ASCII art text
- TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor with built-in editor and manager of ASCII fonts
Historical[edit]
Visual and full-screen editors[edit]
- Brief – a programmer's editor for DOS and OS/2
- Edit application – a programmer's editor for Classic Mac OS
- EDIT – a menu-based editor introduced to supersede EDLIN in MS-DOS version 5.0 and up and available in most Microsoft Windows
- EDT – a character-based editor used on DECPDP-11s and VAXen
- O26 – written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series machines in the mid-1960s
- Red – a VAX/VMS editor, written in Forth variant STOIC
- se – an early screen-based editor for Unix
- SED – cross-platform editor from the 1980s, ran on TOPS-10, TOPS-20 and VMS
- STET (the 'STructured Editing Tool') – may have been the first folding editor; its first version was written in 1977
- TECO – one of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language. While usually described as a line editor, it included screen editing capabilities at least as early as 1965.
Line editors[edit]
- Colossal Typewriter – an early editor thought to be written for the PDP-1
- ed:
- Unix's early line editor
- CP/M's line editor
- EDLIN – a line editor delivered with MS-DOS
- EDT (Univac) – a line editor for Unisys VS/9 and e Fujitsu BS2000 systems
- ex – an EXtended version of Unix's ed, later evolved into the visual editor vi
- fred – sed-like line editor used on the CDC 7600 at Los Alamos
- GEDIT (aka George 3 EDITor) – a TECO-like editor including a programming language for the GEC 4000 series computers. GEDIT was originally written by David Toll of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and then adopted by GEC Computers for OS4000.
- sed – a non-interactive programmable stream editor available in Unix
- TECO – one of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language
- TEDIT – GEC 4000 series editor based on the Cambridge Titan EDIT
See also[edit]
- Outliner, a specialized type of word processor
Notes[edit]
Text Editor In Mac
- ^'Textadept'. Retrieved 2014-08-14.
- ^'Apps/Gedit - GNOME Wiki!'. projects.gnome.org. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^'Leafpad'Archived 2008-10-14 at the Wayback Machine
- ^Xfce#Leafpad
- ^http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/0307163ASYS75UPG.pdf
- ^'System 2.0 (4.1/5.5) 800K Disk Contents (9/93)'. support.apple.com. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^'Mac Basics: TextEdit'. apple.com. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^Charles Moore (6 March 2017). 'So Long Textwrangler, Hello BBEdit'. macprices.net. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^'TextWrangler'. barebones.com. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^'3.10. Text Editors'. www.freebsd.org. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^'vi'. pubs.opengroup.org. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
List Of Text Editors For Mac Video
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