Microsoft silently adds spellchecking, autocorrect to Windows Notepad... only took 41 years

After 41 long, hard years, Microsoft has finally updated the Notepad app on Windows 11 with spellchecking and autocorrect features.

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After initially upgrading Notepad with the new and enhanced features back in March 2024 for insiders, the upgraded Notepad app is now official in Windows 11... very quietly, we might add. If you're old enough, Notepad first appeared the year I was born -- 1983 -- and hasn't had any upgrades in those 41 years, until now.

Microsoft baked in some updates to the Notepad app back in July 0218, with some wrap-around find/replace, text zooming, and line numbers with word-wrap enabled, but when Windows 11 launched in late 2021, we got a few more updates to Notepad. This included dark mode (so good), auto-saving and session retiring, and a pretty useful new tabbed interface if you're working with multiple files.

But now... now we've got the good stuff: spellchecking and autocorrect are now in Notepad... oh yeah.

Microsoft took to its Windows blog back in March 2024 to explain: "Getting started with spellcheck in Notepad is easy as misspelled words are automatically underlined in red. To fix a spelling mistake, click, tap, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift + F10 on the misspelled word to see suggested spellings. Selecting a suggestion immediately updates the word. You can also choose to ignore words in a single document or add them to the dictionary, so they are not flagged as a mistake again. Spellcheck in Notepad supports multiple languages".

"This feature is enabled by default for some file types but is off by default in log files and other file types typically associated with coding. You can toggle this setting on or off globally or for certain file types in Notepad app settings or temporarily for the current file in the context menu. We've organized the settings page as well to make it easier to find and adjust Notepad app settings".