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Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#221

Post by Someone1234 »

tracker1 wrote: post #131
Someone1234 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'd love it installed by default, I still very much mind that they're ruining Notepad. Plus this Markdown preview functionality just caused Notepad to have a Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in it.

Oh it's still pretty stupid, and I think they should have simply resurrected the Wordpad name for this, and maybe a conversion utility for opening doc/rtf files to markdown in the editor for older file support.

Agreed. Resurrecting Wordpad and making it really cool/useful would make everyone happy.

They can add as much AI and Markdown as they want to Wordpad as far as I'm concerned. Just leave my dumb featureless utility alone.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#222

Post by kiwijamo »

hurfdurf wrote: post #213
red_admiral wrote: post #201

Once upon a time, you could strip formatting from the clipboard in notepad with ^V ^A ^C, for example if you were trying to paste from edge into word. There's still a market for a non-rich text editor, without autosave, cloud, account login or AI.

Apparently pasting unformatted text in browsers can be done with Ctrl+Shift+V. Pasting it in Office is Ctrl+Alt+V. Always the odd one out. Taken from here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220906-00/?p=10...

It doesn't work everywhere though as there are still apps that don't offer a plain text paste, and as you have noted the shortcut can be different in different applications.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#223

Post by gmueckl »

noinsight wrote: post #138
pvdebbe wrote: post #111

Notepad going the way of Wordpad, EDIT.COM becoming the new Notepad. What's next, in a few years we're rocking EDLIN when we need to operate on a text file safely?

> EDIT.COM becoming the new Notepad. edit.exe[1,2] actually. And it runs on Linux too! Linux had a real lack of good text editors. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/edit [2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/edit/

So I was about ready to rant about bloat in modern software, but I checked first: the new edit.exe for Windows is 260kB. The old editor for DOS 6.22 was actually provided by qbasic.exe, which had the editor and a full BASIC interpreter packed in 250kB. Edit.com was just a tiny wrapper.

This isn't bad at all given how most other software evolved in thr the intervening 30 years.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#225

Post by MengerSponge »

leni536 wrote: post #215
gmueckl wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it changed recently, the faster way is to just press ctrl+shift+V for "paste special" in Word, which should open up the paste dialog with "Unformated Text" preselected (IIRC), so immediately pressing Enter should close the dialog and paste the stripped text.

Careful when doing it in Teams. ctrl+shift+V is "paste without formatting", ctrl+shift+C is "call everyone".

Hey everyone! Check me out! I don't preserve formatting!

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#226

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

wk_end wrote: post #196
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reading about political messaging in any software should make you AVOID it, not "wishing to have it" the moment software stops being neutral, it becomes a target

I guess this is true in a professional context - you don't want your user's or company's data somehow becoming compromised because of your choice of text editor. But, at the same time, that's exactly the sort of thinking that's killed off that feeling I'm sentimental for. As a free human being, I don't want to live in fear of expressing my political views; and as someone who wants to view the software I make as a for…

as a free human being, you can do whatever

as a program that tries to be used by others - stay in your lane, you are not an opinion cesspool, you are here to do work and let others do it too

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#227

Post by password4321 »

hypeatei wrote: post #34
Longhanks wrote: post #4

They’re turning Notepad into what Wordpad was (or was supposed to be). Now everyone looking for the light weightiest *.txt editor must find a new tool...

Notepad++ is solid but they had a recent kerfuffle involving their security practices and the response didn't inspire much confidence. But if you turn off auto-updates then it's a good alternative if you're still on Windows.

I didn't realize until recently that the very popular Notepad++ was such a lightning rod over the years for controversy and (though I can't guarantee correlation is causation) security issues.

20260202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46851548 Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors (917 points, 543 comments)

20260203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46878338 Notepad++ supply chain attack breakdown (384 points, 198 comments)

20250630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44426049 High-Severity Vulnerability in Notepad++ (39 points, 14 comments)

20230904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37385920 Multiple Notepad++ Flaws Let Attackers Execute Arbitrary Code (83 points, 39 comments)

20230830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37320304 Buffer Overflows in Notepad++ (68 points, 61 comments)

20230829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37311068 Notepad++ v8.5.6 still vulnerable to possible arbitrary code execution (18 points, 3 comments)

20211209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29499002 StrongPity variant hides behind Notepad++ installation (45 points, 28 comments)

20191030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21395251 Notepad++ issues attacked by Chinese commenters (237 points, 110 comments)

20191030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21400526 Notepad++ repository is being spammed after “Free Uyghur” release (82 points, 36 comments)

20190317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329330 Notepad++ drops code signing for its releases (496 points, 327 comments)

20170308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13824032 Notepad++ V 7.3.3 – Fix CIA Hacking Notepad++ Issue (1101 points, 291 comments)

20150112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876823 Notepad ++ hacked for Je Suis Charlie comments(web archive link) (65 points, 74 comments)

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#228

Post by dec0dedab0de »

WithinReason wrote: post #205
password4321 wrote: post #179

I believe Markdown support is what led to CVE-2026-20841 earlier this month. 20260211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971516 Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (804 points, 516 comments) 20260210 https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20... > "An attacker could trick a user into clicking a malicious link inside a Markdown file opened in Notepad" Other recent Notepad issu…

It was already true that an attacker could trick a user into copying a malicious link inside a file opened in Notepad to their browser, was that also a Remote Code Execution Vulnerability?

It looks like the exploit would cause notepad to retrieve and execute arbitrary code when a malicious link is clicked.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#229

Post by bananaflag »

pvdebbe wrote: post #111

Notepad going the way of Wordpad, EDIT.COM becoming the new Notepad. What's next, in a few years we're rocking EDLIN when we need to operate on a text file safely?

I remember first finding out about Edlin in 2003 while reading DOS for Dummies by Dan Gookin. Experienced a lot of anemoia that day. That short section about Edlin was the most touching part of the entire book (probably because it took place before the DOS 5-6 / Win 3.x era which already felt old).

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#230

Post by cyanydeez »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #228
WithinReason wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was already true that an attacker could trick a user into copying a malicious link inside a file opened in Notepad to their browser, was that also a Remote Code Execution Vulnerability?

It looks like the exploit would cause notepad to retrieve and execute arbitrary code when a malicious link is clicked.

The worst part of enshittification is all these search tools erring on the side of too many results than not enough.
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