Notepad3/readme/config/Configuration.md

Notepad3 Configuration Reference

Notepad3 stores its settings in a portable INI file (Notepad3.ini). Press Ctrl+F7 to open it directly in the editor. Most [Settings2] changes require restarting Notepad3.

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[Notepad3]

This section can redirect to a different settings file. Useful when a non-elevated user cannot write to the Notepad3 program directory:

Notepad3.ini=%APPDATA%\Rizonesoft\Notepad3\Notepad3.ini

Or for per-user settings:

Notepad3.ini=%WINDIR%\Notepad3-%USERNAME%.ini

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[Settings]

These settings are managed through Notepad3's user interface (Menu → Settings). For example:

SettingsVersion=5

Favorites=%APPDATA%\Rizonesoft\Notepad3\Favorites\

AnalyzeReliableConfidenceLevel=50

Confidence threshold (0–100) for the encoding analysis reliability indicator. Configurable in Menu → Settings → Encoding Defaults, next to "Perform ANSI Code Page analysis".

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[Settings2]

Advanced settings that can only be edited manually. Press Ctrl+F7 to open the INI file.

Localization

PreferredLanguageLocaleName=en-US

The default value is determined by the OS language setting. Fallback: en-US.

Available languages:

Language	Locale Code
English/United States	en-US (internal default)
Afrikaans/South Africa	af-ZA
Belarusian/Belarus	be-BY
German/Germany	de-DE
Greek/Greece	el-GR
English/United Kingdom	en-GB
Spanish/Spain	es-ES
French/France	fr-FR
Hindi/India	hi-IN
Hungarian/Hungary	hu-HU
Indonesian/Indonesia	id-ID
Italian/Italy	it-IT
Japanese/Japan	ja-JP
Korean/Korea	ko-KR
Dutch/Netherlands	nl-NL
Polish/Poland	pl-PL
Portuguese/Brazil	pt-BR
Portuguese/Portugal	pt-PT
Russian/Russia	ru-RU
Slovak/Slovakia	sk-SK
Swedish/Sweden	sv-SE
Turkish/Turkey	tr-TR
Vietnamese/Vietnam	vi-VN
Chinese Simplified/China	zh-CN
Chinese Traditional/Taiwan	zh-TW

IME & Input

IMEInteraction=0

Scintilla IME composition mode:

• -1 — Auto-detect (one-shot at startup): Korean code pages (949, 1361) → inline (1); all other languages → windowed (0).
• 0 — SC_IME_WINDOWED: IME composition shown in a separate floating window.
• 1 — SC_IME_INLINE: composition happens inline at the caret. Recommended when working with Far East languages that emit long composition strings.

Range: -1–1.

Date & Time

DateTimeFormat=

Locale-dependent short format. Specify the short date/time format using strftime() syntax.

DateTimeLongFormat=

Locale-dependent long format.

TimeStampRegEx=

Default: \$Date:[^\$]+\$ — Find pattern to match timestamps for update.

TimeStampFormat=

Default: $Date: %Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S $

This pattern is used by Shift+F5 to update timestamps, e.g., $Date: 2018/04/26 00:52:39 $.

Notes:

• All DateTime formats accept strftime() format strings.
• DateTimeFormat is also the format used by the .LOG auto-timestamp feature (files starting with .LOG); see File Content Flags.
• TimeStampFormat also accepts %s as a placeholder for a DateTimeFormat-formatted current date/time string (mixing strftime() codes with %s is not allowed).
• If you define a custom TimeStampFormat, define a matching TimeStampRegEx so that "Update Timestamps" can find and replace them correctly.

Files & Directories

DefaultDirectory=

Default directory for open/save dialogs when no file is open. Paths can be relative to the Notepad3 program directory.

DefaultExtension=txt

Default extension for saved files (omit the leading dot).

DenyVirtualSpaceAccess=0

Set to 1 to disable virtual-space access (the area beyond each line's end). With access denied, rectangular (column) selections cannot extend past the shortest line end. Default (0) allows rectangular selection to span virtual space — useful for aligning columns across lines of varying length.

filebrowser.exe=minipath.exe

External program launched by the Browse toolbar button. Defaults to MiniPath.

Additional command line switches can be appended. The currently opened file is passed as the last argument.

Note: Pathnames with spaces need quadruple quoting (""path to/file.exe"") when no arguments follow, or double quoting ("path to/file.exe" /arg) with arguments.

Alternative file browsers:

• filebrowser.exe=explorer.exe — Windows Explorer
• filebrowser.exe=Explorer++.exe — Explorer++
• filebrowser.exe=Q-Dir_x64+.exe — Q-Dir

grepWin.exe=grepWinNP3.exe

Integrated search-and-replace tool with regex support. Launch via:

• File → Launch → Search in Files
• Edit → Search → Search in Files
• Ctrl+Shift+F

FileCheckInterval=2000

Interval in milliseconds to check for external file modification. Min: 200 ms (notify immediately if ≤ 200).

FileWatchingMethod=0 ;(0=both[default], 1=poll-only, 2=push-only)

FileChangedIndicator=[@]

FileDeletedIndicator=[X]

FileDlgFilters=

Custom filters for open/save dialogs. Example:

Text Files|*.txt;*.wtx;*.log;*.asc;*.doc;*.diz;*.nfo|All Files|*.*

FileLoadWarningMB=4

Size limit (MB) for large-file warning. Set to 0 to disable.

FileVarScanBytes=512

Number of bytes scanned at the file's head and (as fallback) at its tail for Emacs file variables, Vim modelines, and encoding tags. Increase if your project's headers (license blocks, banners) push the modeline past 512 bytes. Range: 256–2048. See File Content Flags.

MultiFileArg=0

Set to 1 to allow multiple files on the command line. Default (0) accepts a single file like Windows Notepad. Use + and - command-line switches to override; /z behaves like -.

Language Detection

NoCGIGuess=0

Set to 1 to disable language detection for .cgi and .fcgi files.

NoHTMLGuess=0

Set to 1 to disable HTML/XML detection for files without extensions.

Editing Behavior

NoCopyLineOnEmptySelection=0

Set to 1 to prevent Ctrl+C from copying the current line when nothing is selected.

NoCutLineOnEmptySelection=0

Set to 1 to prevent Ctrl+X from cutting the current line when nothing is selected.

CopyMultiSelectionSeparator=

String placed between selections when copying a multi-selection (Ctrl+C with multiple cursors/selections active). Default (key absent) uses the document's current EOL character. Set to empty for no separator. Supports escape sequences: \r (CR), \n (LF), \t (tab), \xHH (hex character). Common choices:

CopyMultiSelectionSeparator=       ;empty — selections joined without any separator
CopyMultiSelectionSeparator=\t     ;tab-separated
CopyMultiSelectionSeparator=\r\n   ;CRLF between each selection

Clipboard Monitoring

Notepad3 can be launched in clipboard monitoring mode with the /b command-line switch. In this mode, every clipboard change is automatically appended as a new entry at the end of the document. Stop monitoring at any time via Edit → Stop Clipboard Monitoring without closing the editor. While active, the status bar shows CBS in the INS/OVR field.

PasteBoardDebounceMs=200

Debounce interval in milliseconds before a clipboard change is pasted into the document. Increase this value if rapid successive copies result in missed or doubled entries. Range: 0–5000.

PasteBoardSeparator=

String inserted verbatim between pasted entries — all newlines must be included explicitly. Default (key absent) uses the document's current EOL character, placing entries on consecutive lines. Set to empty (PasteBoardSeparator=) for no separator (entries concatenated). Supports escape sequences: \r (CR), \n (LF), \t (tab), \xHH (hex character). Common choices:

PasteBoardSeparator=\r\n---\r\n   ; dashed line on its own line (CRLF doc)
PasteBoardSeparator=\n---\n       ; dashed line on its own line (LF doc)
PasteBoardSeparator=\r\n          ; one line break (consecutive lines, CRLF doc)
PasteBoardSeparator=\r\n\r\n      ; blank line between entries (CRLF doc)
PasteBoardSeparator=\r\n\r\n\r\n  ; two blank lines between entries

Note: The separator string is inserted verbatim — exactly the number of newline characters you specify will appear between entries. To place a text separator (e.g. ---) on its own line, include the surrounding newlines: \n---\n.

PasteBoardAddTimestamp=0

Set to 1 to prepend a [HH:MM:SS] timestamp to each pasted entry.

PasteBoardInitialShowMs=1500

When Notepad3 is launched with both /B (clipboard monitoring) and /I (start minimized), the immediate minimize is deferred so the user can see the window populate with the one-shot auto-pasted clipboard content. The window stays visible for this many milliseconds, then minimizes (to the tray or taskbar, per Settings.MinimizeToTray). Range: 500–5000 ms (clamped at load time). Has no effect unless both /B and /I are passed on the command line — /I alone still minimizes immediately as before.

NoFadeHidden=0

Set to 1 to disable fading of hidden objects in file lists (Favorites, etc.).

NoFileVariables=0

Set to 1 to disable file variable parsing. Encoding tag parsing can be disabled separately in Menu → File → Encoding → Default.

Notepad3 parses Emacs-style variables in the first and last 512 bytes of a file:

Variable	Effect
coding: utf-8;	File encoding tag
mode: python;	Syntax scheme (name or extension)
tab-width: 8;	Tab width
c-basic-indent: 2;	Indentation size
indent-tabs-mode: nil;	Insert tabs as spaces (nil/false/0) or not (true/1)
c-tab-always-indent: true;	Tab key reformats whitespace (true/1) or not
fill-column: 64;	Long-line limit (does not auto-show the visual marker)
truncate-lines: false;	Word wrap: enable (nil/false/0), disable (true/1)
enable-local-variables: false;	Disable variable parsing but keep encoding tags

To bypass both file variable and encoding tag parsing, reload the file with Alt+F8.

Portability & Window

PortableMyDocs=1

Store recent file paths relative to My Documents for USB portability across Windows versions. Enabled by default when RelativeFileMRU=1.

OpacityLevel=75

Window opacity (%) in transparent mode.

FindReplaceOpacityLevel=50

Find/Replace dialog opacity (%) in transparent mode.

RelativeFileMRU=1

Store recent file paths as relative when on the same drive/share as Notepad3.exe.

ReuseWindow=0

Managed by Notepad3 (Menu → Settings → Window → Reuse Window, Ctrl+Shift+L). When enabled, new instances hand off to the existing window.

SaveBlankNewFile=true

Whether to prompt for save when closing an untitled document that contains only whitespace.

DiscardOnClosingUntitledPasteBoard=0

Set to 1 to enable an opt-out variant of the close-modified prompt for Untitled documents (documents with no associated file path) while clipboard-monitoring (PasteBoard) mode is active — i.e. when Notepad3 was launched with /B or PasteBoard mode was toggled on via Edit → Toggle Clipboard Monitoring. With the default (0), or whenever PasteBoard mode is inactive, the standard Save / Discard / Cancel prompt is shown without a "Don't show this dialog again" checkbox.

When the gate matches (flag set + Untitled + PasteBoard active), closing a modified untitled document shows the same Save / Discard / Cancel prompt with a "Don't show this dialog again" checkbox and Discard pre-selected as the default button. If the box is checked alongside a Save or Discard answer, that choice is persisted under [Suppressed Messages] MsgDiscardUntitled in the INI and replays silently on subsequent close-untitled events — useful when Notepad3 is regularly used as a clipboard scratchpad. Cancel is never persisted. To re-enable the prompt, delete the MsgDiscardUntitled line from the [Suppressed Messages] section, or simply set DiscardOnClosingUntitledPasteBoard=0 (the loader auto-clears the suppression entry on next start). Has no effect on documents that have a file path or when PasteBoard mode is not active.

SciFontQuality=3

Scintilla font rendering quality:

• 0 — Default (system-chosen)
• 1 — Non-antialiased
• 2 — Antialiased
• 3 — LCD-optimized (ClearType; default)

Range: 0–3. A per-resolution override is supported in the [Window] section via a key named <ResX>x<ResY> SciFontQuality=<n> (e.g. 1920x1080 SciFontQuality=2), so different monitor layouts can use different font quality settings.

SimpleIndentGuides=0

Set to 1 to prevent indentation guides from jumping across empty lines.

SingleFileInstance=1

Managed by Notepad3.

ShellAppUserModelID=Rizonesoft.Notepad3

ShellUseSystemMRU=1

Controls taskbar grouping, Jump List, and system MRU behavior. See Replacing Windows Notepad for details.

StickyWindowPosition=0

Managed by Notepad3 (Menu → View → Position → Sticky Window Position). Remembers current position on restart instead of last-closed position.

SubWrappedLineSelectOnMarginClick=false

Set to true for old selection behavior: single click selects the visible sub-line, double click selects the entire wrapped line.

LaunchInstanceWndPosOffset=28

Pixel offset cascade applied to each new Notepad3 window launched as an additional instance. Each successive window is shifted by this many pixels (both X and Y) relative to the previous one, so overlapping windows remain distinguishable. Range: -10000–10000. Set to 0 to spawn new windows at the exact same position.

LaunchInstanceFullVisible=true

When true (default), newly launched windows are clamped so they remain fully visible on the target monitor, even if the LaunchInstanceWndPosOffset cascade would push them off-screen. Set to false to allow partially off-screen positions (e.g. if you rely on the OS to handle multi-monitor placement).

Appearance

RenderingTechnology=1

Scintilla rendering back-end:

Value	Name	Description
0	GDI	Classic Win32 rendering
1	DirectWrite	Direct2D (default on x86/x64)
2	DirectWriteRetain	Direct2D preserving the back buffer between frames (default on ARM64 to prevent flicker on Qualcomm Adreno GPUs and the Win11 25H2 DWM compositor)
3	DirectWriteDC	DC-based Direct2D

Also configurable via Menu → View → Rendering Technology. A per-resolution override is supported in the [Window] section, e.g. 1920x1080 RenderingTechnology=0, so a docked laptop and an external 4K monitor can use different back-ends.

Tip: On ARM64 systems showing rendering glitches, try 0 (GDI) or 3 (DirectWriteDC) as a workaround.

UseOldStyleBraceMatching=0

Set to 1 for legacy brace-matching style.

LargeIconScalePrecent=150

Display scale percent threshold to switch to larger file-type icons.

DarkModeBkgColor=0x1F1F1F

Dark-mode window background color. The three DarkMode*Color entries use Win32 COLORREF byte order — 0xBBGGRR (blue, green, red), not the usual HTML 0xRRGGBB. So 0x1F1F1F is a near-black neutral, and e.g. 0x0000FF is pure red, not pure blue.

DarkModeBtnFaceColor=0x333333

Dark-mode button face color. Same 0xBBGGRR byte order as above.

DarkModeTxtColor=0xEFEFEF

Dark-mode text color. Same 0xBBGGRR byte order as above.

Web Actions

WebTemplate1=https://google.com/search?q=%s

WebTmpl1MenuName=Open Web Action 1

WebTemplate2=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s

WebTmpl2MenuName=Open Web Action 2

Auto-Completion & Editing

ExtendedWhiteSpaceChars=:

Additional ASCII characters treated as word delimiters for Accelerated Word Navigation.

AutoCompleteWordCharSet=

Set automatically for CJK input languages. Custom character sets limit the auto-completion word list to words composed of these characters only (case-insensitive).

AutoCompleteFillUpChars=

Characters that accept an auto-completion item. For Enter-to-complete behavior:

AutoCompleteFillUpChars=\r\n

To also accept on ( or .:

AutoCompleteFillUpChars=\r\n(.

LineCommentPostfixStrg=

String appended/removed after comment tags on line-comment toggle. Double-quote if it contains spaces:

LineCommentPostfixStrg=" "

Hyperlinks

HyperlinkShellExURLWithApp=""

External application for Ctrl+Click on URLs. If empty, the OS default handler is used.

HyperlinkShellExURLCmdLnArgs="${URL}"

Command-line arguments for the URL application. Use ${URL} as placeholder:

HyperlinkShellExURLCmdLnArgs="--incognito "${URL}""

HyperlinkFileProtocolVerb=""

ShellExecuteEx verb: "" (default), "edit", "explore", "find", "open", "print", "properties", "runas".

Fonts

CodeFontPrefPrioList="Cascadia Code,Cascadia Mono,Cousine,Fira Code,Source Code Pro,Roboto Mono,DejaVu Sans Mono,Inconsolata,Consolas,Lucida Console"

Font priority list for the "Common Base" scheme.

TextFontPrefPrioList="Cascadia Mono,Cousine,Roboto Mono,DejaVu Sans Mono,Inconsolata,Consolas,Lucida Console"

Font priority list for the "Text Files" scheme.

Miscellaneous

UpdateDelayMarkAllOccurrences=50

Debounce interval (milliseconds) before the "mark all occurrences" highlight is recomputed after a document change. Lower values feel more responsive but cost more CPU on large documents; higher values reduce flicker while typing. Range: ~20–10000 ms (the lower bound is clamped to USER_TIMER_MINIMUM * 2, typically around 20 ms).

CurrentLineHorizontalSlop=40

Horizontal caret slop in columns, passed to Scintilla's SCI_SETXCARETPOLICY. Defines the minimum horizontal gap (in character cells) the caret keeps from the left/right edge of the view before the view starts to scroll horizontally. Larger values keep more surrounding context visible; 0 disables the slop. Range: 0–240.

CurrentLineVerticalSlop=5

Vertical caret slop in lines, passed to Scintilla's SCI_SETYCARETPOLICY. Defines the minimum vertical gap (in whole lines) the caret keeps from the top/bottom of the view before the view scrolls. 0 forces the "even caret" policy (caret always centered-ish); positive values set a fixed top/bottom margin. Range: 0–100.

UndoTransactionTimeout=0

Timeout in milliseconds. Set to 1 (clamped to 10 ms minimum) to make nearly every keystroke a separate undo action. 0 disables the timer.

AdministrationTool.exe=

Reserved for future use.

DevDebugMode=0

Show encoding detector (UCHARDET) info in the title bar for debugging.

LocaleAnsiCodePageAnalysisBonus=33

Bias added to confidence when the system's ANSI code page matches the detected encoding.

UchardetLanguageFilter=31

;  Bitmask controlling which CJK charset probers are active in uchardet:
;    Bit 0 (0x01/1)  = Chinese Simplified (GB18030)
;    Bit 1 (0x02/2)  = Chinese Traditional (Big5, EUC-TW)
;    Bit 2 (0x04/4)  = Japanese (Shift_JIS, EUC-JP)
;    Bit 3 (0x08/8)  = Korean (EUC-KR)
;    Bit 4 (0x10/16) = Non-CJK (single-byte encodings)
;  Common values:
;    31 = All probers (default)
;    27 = Exclude Japanese (fix GB18030 misdetected as EUC-JP)
;    17 = Chinese Simplified + Non-CJK only
;     3 = Chinese only (simplified + traditional)

LexerSQLNumberSignAsComment=1

Enable # as a line-comment character in MySQL-dialect SQL. Set to 0 to disable.

AtomicFileSave=true

When true (default), Save writes to a temporary file alongside the target and then atomically replaces the original via ReplaceFileW. This preserves the original file's ACLs, alternate data streams, and attributes on failure (nothing is lost if the write is interrupted). Set to false to write in-place, which is faster on very large files but offers no rollback if the write fails mid-way. During Windows session end (WM_ENDSESSION) the atomic path is bypassed regardless of this setting.

ExitOnESCSkipLevel=2

Controls ESC key behavior:

• 2 (default): Cancel each state separately (message boxes → selection → exit)
• 1: Cancel message boxes, skip selection state
• 0: Cancel all states and proceed to exit (if configured)

ZoomTooltipTimeout=3200

Zoom tooltip display duration in milliseconds. Set to 0 to disable.

WrapAroundTooltipTimeout=2000

Search wrap-around tooltip duration in milliseconds. Set to 0 to disable.

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[Statusbar Settings]

Customize the status bar layout: number, order, width, and prefix/postfix text of fields.

VisibleSections=0 1 15 14 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Defines visible fields and their order:

Section	Content
0	Ln — Line number / Total lines
1	Col — Column number / Long-line limit
2	Sel — Selected characters
3	Sb — Selected bytes (UTF-8)
4	SLn — Selected lines
5	Occ — Marked occurrences
6	File size (UTF-8 mode)
7	Encoding (double-click to open Encoding dialog)
8	EOL mode (toggle CR+LF / LF / CR)
9	INS/OVR mode toggle (double-click); shows CBS when clipboard monitoring is active — double-click CBS stops monitoring
10	STD/2ND text mode toggle
11	Current scheme (double-click to open scheme selector)
12	Ch — Character count from line start
13	Repl — Replaced occurrences
14	Eval — TinyExpr evaluation
15	U+ — Unicode code point (UTF-16) at caret

SectionPrefixes=Ln ,Col ,Sel ,Sb ,SLn ,Occ ,,,,,,,Ch ,Repl ,Eval ,U+,

Redefine display prefixes. Comma-separated; spaces are significant.

SectionPostfixes=,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Redefine display postfixes. Comma-separated; spaces are significant.

SectionWidthSpecs=30 20 20 20 20 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 20 24

Relative field widths. 0 = auto-fit, negative = fixed pixel width (text truncated).

ZeroBasedColumnIndex=0

Start column counting at 0 or 1.

ZeroBasedCharacterCount=0

Start character counting at 0 or 1.

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[Toolbar Labels]

Display function names next to toolbar icons:

01=New
02=Open
03=Browse
04=Save
05=Undo
06=Redo
07=Cut
08=Copy
09=Paste
10=Find
11=Replace
12=Word Wrap
13=Zoom In
14=Zoom Out
15=Scheme
16=Customize Schemes
17=Exit
18=Save As
19=Save Copy
20=Delete
21=Print
22=Favorites
23=Add to Favorites
24=Toggle Folds
25=Execute Document
26=Focused View
27=Monitoring Log
28=History
29=Always On Top
30=Search in Files
31=Reset Zoom
32=New Empty Window

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[Window]

<ResX>x<ResY> DefaultWindowPosition=

Managed by Notepad3 (Menu → View → Position → Save as Default Position). Recall with Ctrl+Shift+P.