Tech Desk 
Jul 09, 2024
Microsoft, the American tech giant, is set to unveil spellcheck and autocorrect features for its Notepad app in Windows 11, more than 40 years after the simple text editor was first introduced in Windows in 1983.
Earlier, the software giant began testing both features and has now started enabling them for all Windows 11 users.
The spellcheck feature in Notepad is similar to how Word or Edge highlight misspelled words, with a red underline to clearly display mistakes. However, Microsoft has not yet fully adopted the functionality seen in Word, specifically the ability to right-click and immediately choose the correction in Notepad during the beta testing phase.
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Microsoft Word first introduced a spellcheck feature in 1985, known primarily as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix and MS-DOS systems. Additionally, Microsoft originally made Notepad, first known as Multi-Tool Notepad in 1983, to be a stripped-down version of Word.
Users can enable or disable spellcheck on a file-type basis in Notepad for Windows 11, so if users don’t want to see corrections in files like .md, .srt, .lrc, or .lic, they can toggle those options in the settings menu.
In addition, Microsoft has included autocorrect in Notepad, which results in typos being automatically corrected when spellcheck is enabled. Autocorrect can also be disabled in Notepad’s settings.
Microsoft has been slowly adding features to its Notepad app for Windows 11, just in time for the company to remove the built-in WordPad app from Windows 11 later. Currently, Notepad has a character count, dark mode, tabs, Copilot integration, and even a virtual fidget spinner.
