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How can we force Microsoft to change a default setting for Notepad?

AmyStrange

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AmyStrange
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Yeah, yeah, I know, the answer is junk Microsoft and get something better, but I've got too much invested in them right now (equipment, software etc.) to just drop them and move on.

Plus, I'm poor AF.

I know I can use Word instead, but Notepad is much simpler for what I want to do and that is write webpages.

Anyway, Here's my problem:

When I open a text document with Notepad, it automatically defaults to "UTF-8" (even if I've originally saved it as "ANSI"), and that wouldn't be a problem if it didn't turn this"

"What?" I said, almost choking on a pancake.

into this (turning ""s into @@s):

@What?@ I said, almost choking on a pancake.

The symbols used aren't really @s, but that's not the point, because even when I resave them as an "ANSI" document (while keeping it open) the symbols don't change back to their original form, they stay @s.

This is a big, big BIG, problem when I'm creating an html document from scratch. I wrote all 2,000+ webpages on both my websites from scratch without any help from something like WordPress or any other similar software.

FINALLY:

Does anyone know anyone at Microsoft that could secretly fix this problem, or maybe someone here knows where the hell the default settings for this particular problem is so I can fix it myself?

I've looked at every kind of setting I can find (including the ones for Notepad), but I can't find a freakin' thing anywhere.

HELP!

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It works fine for me - do you have the encoding set to Auto-Detect when opening the file?

I assume you are getting the problem because you are opening the file from eg file manager and it's picking up the default encoding and yours must be set to UTF-8 - mine is set to Auto-Detect and I haven't done anything to change that....

You could work around it by opening the file from within Notepad ie open Notepad, click File, open (or CTRL+o) and the window that opens to let you select the file you want has a setting marked 'Encoding' that lets you tell Notepad how to open the file. As I say, mine is set to Auto-Detect but you can specify ANSI.

I'll see if there's a way of re-setting that...

Or you could just use Notepad++ which is free.
 
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Notepad is a bare-bones text editor. It's only there to give you the most basic functionality "out of the box".

Notepad++ is free, rich in features, and extensively customizeable.
 
Oh and Notepad++ definitely allows you to set your default encoding...

There are ways to do it in Notepad apparently but they involve command line regedits - not sure I'd recommend that unless you are confident of doing such things...
 
Ethan Thane Athen said:
It works fine for me - do you have the encoding set to Auto-Detect when opening the file?

I assume you are getting the problem because you are opening the file from eg file manager and it's picking up the default encoding and yours must be set to UTF-8 - mine is set to Auto-Detect and I haven't done anything to change that....

You could work around it by opening the file from within Notepad ie open Notepad, click File, open (or CTRL+o) and the window that opens to let you select the file you want has a setting marked 'Encoding' that lets you tell Notepad how to open the file. As I say, mine is set to Auto-Detect but you can specify ANSI.

I'll see if there's a way of re-setting that...

Or you could just use Notepad++ which is free.
Click to expand...


Thank you. That works perfectly.

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Ethan Thane Athen said:
Oh and Notepad++ definitely allows you to set your default encoding...

There are ways to do it in Notepad apparently but they involve command line regedits - not sure I'd recommend that unless you are confident of doing such things...
Click to expand...


I stay far, far away from regedits. The closest I've come to that is writing batch files (.bat), but that feels like a hundred years ago.

Anyway, thank you again for your help.

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theprestige said:
Using Notepad++ is still easier than that.
Click to expand...


I used to use a program called "EDIT" that came with Windows before the Windows 95 debacle. I liked it way better than Notepad because it was way easier to use making "ASCII" art within webpages amongst other things.

Windows also originally came with a free program called "QuickBasic" that I actually used to learn how to write code. It was great!

Ah, the good, old days.

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ETA: I think "EDIT" was still included after Windows 95, but not too much longer than that. I used to have an old computer with an old OS that still had both programs, but I spilt coffee on it one day...
 
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Is it some special kind of double quotes ? Normal ones (Ascii code 34) are the same in pretty much all encodings, including UTF-8. It shouldn't be problem.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Is it some special kind of double quotes ? Normal ones (Ascii code 34) are the same in pretty much all encodings, including UTF-8. It shouldn't be problem.
Click to expand...


No, it's just a single quote mark (").

I just used double quote marks ("") as an example, because both quote marks were replaced.

Sorry for the confusion.


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ETA: I don't know why my "ANSI" text files do that when they're opened with "UTF-8" coding, but that's exactly what happens, but they reappear when I use Ethan's way of opening them.

Almost ALL my text files were originally written using the "EDIT" program I mentioned above.
 
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AmyStrange said:
I used to use a program called "EDIT" that came with Windows before the Windows 95 debacle. I liked it way better than Notepad because it was way easier to use making "ASCII" art within webpages amongst other things.

Windows also originally came with a free program called "QuickBasic" that I actually used to learn how to write code. It was great!

Ah, the good, old days.

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ETA: I think "EDIT" was still included after Windows 95, but not too much longer than that. I used to have an old computer with an old OS that still had both programs, but I spilt coffee on it one day...
Click to expand...

The Windows 95 debacle?

If this is going to be an onion on your belt, five bees for a quarter type conversation, I'm out.
 
theprestige said:
Notepad is a bare-bones text editor. It's only there to give you the most basic functionality "out of the box".

Notepad++ is free, rich in features, and extensively customizeable.
Click to expand...

100%
It's free, easy to use out the box, customisable , eg syntax highlight for web pages etc.
My main windows PC has 2 massive IDEs and I still use notepad++ for a lot.
 
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