Though WordPad has improved largely over the years and has become the default plain-text editor for Windows users, DocPad offers you a free and superior alternative with a much wider functionality. This ribbon-based text editor comes with a calculator, a calendar, a macro manager, a spell checker, and TTS capabilities together with a long list of editing features and tools.
DocPad is somewhere in between WordPad and Microsoft Word both in appearance and in functionality (with the limitations inherent to plain ASCII files, of course). Apart from the usual suspects (cut, paste, copy, print, search, replace, etc.), this free text editor comes with a series of editing tools that you will not find easily in its competitors. You can open multiple files and manage them easily in a multi-tabbed interface. It will “back up” the different versions of the files you’re working on, which will allow you to roll back any changes at any time. It includes case conversion capabilities, text drag-and-drop, print preview, space normalization, paragraph alphabetization, and many more.
On a different note, DocPad is also equipped with various heavy-weight functions, such as a spell checker for English and Spanish texts so far, support for unlimited user-made macros, a TTS engine that reads aloud the text on the screen (regrettably, the program does not offer recording capabilities), and extensive statistics about the text on the screen. Apart from the number of characters, words, sentences or paragraphs, this statistics will tell you the reading time, the characters used from the entire map, and the longest and shortest words, among other interesting facts.
All in all, DocPad not only makes WordPad pale in comparison, it also provides you with tools that not even “more professional” word processors such as Microsoft Word can offer. This program is not an interesting addition to your desktop – it’s the ultimate substitute for your default WordPad.
v23.0
- DocPad now uses a Tabbed Document Interface. It can have multiple files open for editing at the same time. Each opened file appears as a tab below the toolbar.
- Most windows now calculate their width as a factor of the interface font size. Previously they were a factor of the screen size. This ensures that windows are the optimal size, even when the font is very small or very large relative to the screen.
- Calculator: added the "Convert Units" tool.
- The operating system's mouse wheel scrolling speed is now obeyed.
- Welcome: if the file cannot be opened, the error window now has a "Remove" button that will remove the file from the Recent Documents list.
- Clipboard Inspector: numerous improvements.
- The "New Document Type" setting now defaults to UTF-8.
- Welcome: if the Recent Documents list has two files with the same filename, now both of them will be listed by their full filepath.
- Welcome: Delete File: the file is now moved to the Recycle Bin.
- Holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on a scrollbar arrow will now scroll all the way.
- Added support for mouse tilt wheel.
- Spell Check: when Word Wrap is disabled, this will now horizontally scroll the whole misspelled word into view.
- Fixed: after changing the Document Type, then using the Undo tool, the status bar was not showing the undone Document Type.
- Fixed: Help: Print: some hyperlinks were not followed by the page number.
- Fixed: possible crash when right clicking on an editbox.
- Fixed: Check For Update: when installed to a portable drive, installing an update was installing to the hard drive rather than the portable drive.
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