One continual annoyance with Notepad, though, is that, by default, Notepad's Word Wrap (meaning 'line wrap') function is not enabled. That means that your sentences disappear off the edge of the window. This is the case in most versions of Windows, including Windows XP even. And, to make matters worse, if you select Edit > Word Wrap to make Notepad wrap text to the window size, it then fails to remember this setting on the next session, except on a next-to-useless per-document basis. Fixing this bugbear (that word, incidentally, is where the classic computer term about 'fixing bugs' originated from) will mean going into the Windows Registry. However, this is not only one of the top ten most useful registry hacks you can do, it is also one of the simplest - if not the simplest. All that is needed is for one character, a zero (0), to be changed to a one (1). It is just that single erroneous character that has been frustrating so many hundreds of millions of Notepad users for so many years! Making this simple change will reverse Notepad's behaviour so that line wrapping becomes the superior default arrangement.
If you have never been in the registry before, but you are experienced in using Windows Explorer's two-pane window, and are in the habit of using the mouse's right-hand context-menu button to move, copy, delete and rename files and folders, then you have absolutely nothing to fear about using the Windows Explorer-like Registry Editor utility.
Using Registry Editor does carry a certain risk in that, unlike any other Windows' application, all changes you type in the RegEdit window take effect immediately, irreversibly, mostly without any warning and, if done wrongly, could render your PC useless (i.e. unbootable). But, provided you never type in or delete anything mistakenly, and, provided you have taken the precaution of backing up of the registry beforehand, all will be well.
The first thing then, before hacking the registry, is to be sure you have a backup of the existing registry, and to know how to restore it if need be (if this is unknown territory for you, see Tip 2 in the right-hand column).
When you are ready to go ahead (which you do entirely at your own risk, from hereon), do Start > Run > type in regedit > OK.
At the Registry Editor window (see Fig. 1 for a condensed view), in the left-hand pane, click the relevant expand icons
i) If fWrap is already there, you will see a Data string something like "0x00000001 (0)" (see position d). The final (0) figure is the culprit. To remedy it, right-click on fWrap > Modify > at 'Value data' (see position e), replace the highlighted 0 with a 1 > OK > close the Registry Editor, or
ii) If "fWrap" does not exist anywhere in your right-hand pane, right-click in that pane on an area of empty white space > New > DWORD Value. A new item will appear in the right-hand pane with a default name something like 'New Value #1'. If the default name is highlighted, type over it to give it the name fWrap.
If the default name was not highlighted, right-click on it > Rename > type in fWrap. After entering the name fWrap, left-click in an empty area of the pane (or press Enter) for the name to take > right-click on fWrap > Modify > at 'Value data' (see position e), replace the 0 with a 1 > OK > close the Registry Editor.
Now open Notepad > Edit menu, and you will see a tick in the drop-down menu against Word Wrap. You can still toggle the setting off and on, and save it, on a per-document basis but, thankfully, Notepad will now remember Word Wrap as being 'on' as its default setting for all new documents that you create with extensions of txt, css, htm etc. Exactly as it should have been doing all these past years!
| Fig. 1 (below) This a foreshortened screenshot of RegEdit, the Windows' Registry Editor tool. An associated dialog box is also open in this same view. |
