Microsoft is again beefing up Notepad in Windows 11, giving the increasingly not-so-lightweight editor a fresh power in terms of support for tables, and bolstered AI capabilities.
This is present in the new preview of Notepad rolling out to Windows 11 testers in the Canary and Dev Channels, as Microsoft explains in a blog post.
The big move is that tables have arrived in Notepad, with the option to create these having been added to the formatting toolbar.
They work just as you’d expect, and you can quickly insert a table into a document, choosing the size from a visual grid interface. As Microsoft notes, right-clicking on a table gives you quick edit options to add or remove rows or columns.
On the AI front, the new spin here is ‘streaming results’ for the Write, Rewrite, and Summarize features, which do what they say on the tin (create new text, rewrite an existing piece of copy, or provide a summary of something).
‘Streaming results’ means that the text the AI is writing (or rewriting) appears on-the-fly in a preview window, letting you start to review it (or change it) more swiftly.
Analysis: worries around bloat and performance
This is a useful touch for those who use the AI abilities now provided in Notepad, no doubt, although there is a slight catch – namely that streaming results for Rewrite is only possible on a Copilot+ PC (using the NPU for local on-device processing), at least for now. You’ll also need to be signed into a Microsoft account to use any of this AI functionality in Notepad.
Tables might be handy for some folks, too, and the way they’re implemented with that grid interface is quite similar to how they work in Microsoft Word.
However, the addition of more features to Notepad is sure to provoke the ire of those who just want this editor to be a completely minimalist affair, to keep it streamlined and working (and loading) as responsively as possible. I use Word, personally, so I want Notepad left alone as a truly lightweight alternative – its original design concept – although I realize that’s not going to be true for everyone, of course.
Still, there’s no shortage of people complaining that Notepad is in danger of becoming bloated – or indeed, that this is already pretty much the case, as has been made clear in the past – but it doesn’t seem like Microsoft is done adding features.
Indeed, having canned WordPad – which was the halfway point between Notepad and the full Word experience – back in 2024, Microsoft appears to be slowly making Notepad more like its now-departed sibling.
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