Every Windows 7/8/10 user is aware of Notepad, the basic text editor that is bundled with the software. Unlike advanced text applications like Microsoft Word, Notepad is mostly used for low-level documentation: for example, for creating user guides and Readme’s. It can as well be used in situations where plain text is sufficient without a need for sophisticated formatting.
But even though it is a basic text creator, Notepad still has a few features which are very useful in certain situations. One of these is Word Wrap. Word Wrap
is found in the Format tab in Notepad. With this function enabled, long lines of text will be broken into smaller lines for the convenience of the reader. You won’t have to scroll left and right in order to read content. You will be able to see everything at a glance without having to use the scroll bar. As you know, constant left-to-right scrolling can be annoying and irritating, not to mention disadvantageous for the neck. So, the scroll wrap feature is designed to make things easier for you when using Notepad.
Another fine feature of Notepad is the Status Bar option. When typing, the Status Bar in Notepad displays the number of lines and columns in the document. Though the information conveyed isn’t as in-depth as the Status Bar in Microsoft Word, it still provides useful titbits for certain users.
With features like these, Notepad is just perfect for those of you that just want a simple text editor that is light, does all the simple things right, and doesn’t consume too many resources.
There is a spanner in the works though. If you open Notepad and click the View tab, you will see that the status bar option is greyed out. Before you go thinking there must be an error somewhere, nope. It is how Notepad is configured. Status Bar is automatically greyed out when Word Wrap is enabled.
Since Status Bar shows the number of lines in a text and Word Wrap breaks single lines into multiple ones for visual convenience, conflict between the two features is inevitable if both are active at the same time. Hence, whenever you enable Word Wrap, Status Bar is automatically disabled. Therefore, before Status Bar can be used, you have to restore the default line scheme in Notepad.
Obviously, this might be a big problem if you use Notepad to create and edit scripts. You might want the ease Word Wrap provides while also wanting to keep track of lines and columns as you create them. You could simply decide to use another basic text editing tool that can simultaneously keep both features enabled. But if you prefer to keep using Notepad, we will show you a little trick. With this hack, you can activate both features simultaneously in Notepad.
How to enable the status bar and Word Wrap in Notepad?
But first things first: Here is how to enable Word Wrap and Status Bar the normal way:
- For Word Wrap, open your Notepad and go to Format > Word Wrap.
- For Status Bar, first, disable Word Wrap. Next, go to View > Status Bar.
How do I enable the status bar in Notepad without disabling Word Wrap?
- Using Registry Editor
With a simple hack, we can trick Windows Registry into enabling Status Bar in Notepad when Word Wrap is already enabled. The process isn’t complicated at all. You just need to open the registry editor and change the relevant value for the Notepad. Without further ado, these are the steps:
- Open up the search box on your Windows computer.
- Type regedit and select the top result. This will open the Windows Registry Editor.
- If the menu is compressed, expand Computer in the top left.
- Expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
- Expand Software.
- Expand Microsoft.
- Scroll down to Notepad.
- You will see a bunch of values in the right panel.
- Right-click StatusBar and select Modify.
- In the Edit DWORD window, change the Value data value from 0 to 1 and click OK to save.
- Exit Registry Editor.
For this method to be successful, you must close Notepad before initiating the process. You must also have Word Wrap enabled prior to tweaking the StatusBar value in Registry Editor, otherwise it will not work.
However, tinkering with the registry has been noted to lead to some performance errors for some users. Moreover, if you’re unable to change the registry values of Notepad or any other program, it is likely because of niggling problems with the files on your PC. An accumulation of useless registry items can cause this. The net effect, aside possible registry errors, is slower PC performance.
Prevention might be better than cure; but if you couldn’t prevent, you can fix. To solve this situation, we recommend downloading and installing Auslogics BoostSpeed on your computer. This handy software will check your PC for all causes of sub-optimum performance and eliminate them. All you have to do is perform a simple scan, and it will show you a list of errors that have affected the performance of your CPU, HDD and Windows. You can fix each in turn, or all at once, with a single click.
- Using Windows Update
The Windows 10 October 2018 update (version 1809) brought a lot of improvements to the Windows platform. Among these is a nice revamp of the Notepad application. Microsoft added a lot of new features as it updated Notepad after a long, long time. Apart from things like the ability to delete words with backspace, zoom in and out of text, search selected text with Bing, among other useful features, the Status Bar has finally been enabled by default in this new version.
This means that if you’re on the October 2018 or later version of Windows 10, you don’t have to use the registry hack. You can enable Status Bar just fine while Word Wrap is also active.
If you’re on an older version of Windows 10, here is how to update it:
- Go to Settings
- Choose Update & Security
- Click Windows Updates
- Select the Check for Updates option
- Click the Restart Now button once the download is completed
Wait for Windows to finish installing the update.
That’s it for how to enable Word Wrap and Status Bar in Notepad at the same time. If you know of any further tricks relating to Notepad, share them in the comments.
