40 Years Later, Microsoft Finally Adds Spell Checking to Notepad

Microsoft’s free and easy-to-use text editor, Notepad, is finally getting a feature many users have been asking for for years: spell checking. Finally, when you copy and paste random URLs or passwords into Notepad, you’ll be notified of any spelling mistakes.

Notepad was launched in 1983It was the company’s free, minimalist, and simplified alternative to Microsoft Word, a more full-featured word processor that’s still popular in 2024. Since Notepad launched in the 1980s, the company has made minor updates to Notepad, but it’s never been a true word processor. And that’s not going to change anytime soon, but at least now, if you use Notepad on Windows 11, you’ll be able to spell-check words.

As reported by PC MagStarting this week, Microsoft is rolling out an update to Notepad for all Windows 11 users that adds those familiar squiggly red lines under misspelled words in text documents. Users can then right-click the red line to see the correctly spelled version of the word and click that option to correct the typo.

TechnicallyThis new spell checking feature for Notepad has been around for some users for Mars in beta testing. But as of Windows 11 Notepad version 11.2405.13.0 and later, it appears that testing is complete and spell checking is now a built-in feature of the app for everyone. I don’t know why Microsoft doesn’t add this simple feature to Notepad on Windows 10, it seems like it might, but I assume it’s meant to be an extra incentive to get people (like me) to upgrade from 10 to 11. And to that I say: No way, Microsoft. No way.

Meanwhile, WordPad, a free word processor that sits somewhere between Notepad and Word, is no more. In a future update to Windows 11, Microsoft has confirmed its intention to remove WordPad of the operating system. WordPad is scheduled to be phased out in September or October of this year. This may be why Notepad is getting a few updates.

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