Notepad gains support for Linux and macOS line endings

Despite the many alternatives, Notepad remains one of the most popular text editors among tech enthusiasts because it's very light-weight -- relaxing to use due to its lack of features. Unfortunately, up until now, Notepad exclusively supported text documents containing Windows End of Line (EOL) characters - Carriage Return (CR) & Line Feed (LF).

If you try to open text files created in Unix, Linux or macOS, the document looks like trash because Notepad ignores the line breaks. This makes a lot of files, like Linux code or web logs, very hard to read.

Microsoft developer Michel Lopez reports this changes with the latest Windows 10 Insider build. The newest version will have full support for Unix, Linux, and macOS line endings.

Starting with the current Windows 10 Insider build, Notepad will support Unix/Linux line endings (LF), Macintosh line endings (CR), and Windows Line endings (CRLF) as usual. New files created within Notepad will use Windows line ending (CRLF) by default, but it will now be possible to view, edit, and print existing files, correctly maintaining the file’s current line ending format.

This feature will likely find its way into the regular Windows 10 release within half a year or so, with this year's Fall update.