Extend Notepad++ with Plugins

Martin Brinkmann
May 5, 2008
Updated • Apr 9, 2012
Software, Windows
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5

I have never paid much attention to the plugin support of Notepad++ until today when I went to the official download website to notice them for the first time. You all know that I setup my new computer and one of the applications that I cannot live without is Notepad++. Several of the listed plugins sounded quite useful and I thought it would be great to point other users in the right direction.

Adding plugins is a breeze. Notepad++ comes with a plugin folder that is a subdirectory of the root directory of the installation. Just place all downloaded plugins into that directory and they will automatically be recognized by Notepad++. If the plugin directory is not existing create it. The plugins can be configured from within Notepad++ by clicking on the Plugins menu in the toolbar.

The removal process works the same way, just delete files in the plugin directory to remove a plugin that you do not want to use anymore.

The main plugin page lists 26 plugins for the latest version of Notepad++. Here are the ones that I found useful and decided to install:

  • XML Tools - XML Checker. Can auto-close tags and provides other useful features.
  • Hex Editor - adds a Hex Editor to Notepad++
  • Compare Plugin - compare two text files.
  • FTP Synchronize - modify and upload files directly to a ftp server.
  • Multi Clipboard - add up to ten text phrases to the clipboard.
  • Windows Manager - great if you work with many open windows at once regularly.

Those are just five of the 26 available plugins. Most have been written for special purposes and are probably not useful to the majority of users.

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Comments

  1. Sara T said on April 9, 2010 at 10:15 pm
    Reply

    I have a question about the “Compare” plug-in. When I first started using this tool, I remember that if there was a line in file A that did not appear in file B, Notepad++ created a blank line (space) in file B so that the common lines stayed aligned. Is this a toggle that I can turn back on? Notepad++ no longer does this for me and I can’t figure out how to turn it back on.

    Thank you!!

  2. jwon said on February 4, 2010 at 3:17 pm
    Reply

    I have activated the auto close tags in xmltools, but how does it work?

    This also is my problem in textFX

  3. Stuart said on January 7, 2010 at 4:39 pm
    Reply

    Would love a html preview Plugin!

  4. helpout said on May 6, 2008 at 12:54 pm
    Reply

    Xml Tools 2.1 r545 (latest version) is unfortunately not compatible with Notepad++ v4.9.1

  5. BlueRaja said on May 6, 2008 at 5:04 am
    Reply

    Most of those come installed with the default installation

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