A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software. Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to change files such as configuration files, documentation files and programming language source code.
Vim is a free and open-source, screen-based text editor program. It is an improved clone of Bill Joy's vi. Vim's author, Bram Moolenaar, derived Vim from a port of the Stevie editor for Amiga and released a version to the public in 1991. Vim is designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Since its release for the Amiga, cross-platform development has made it available on many other systems. In 2018, it was voted the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers; in 2015 the Stack Overflow developer survey found it to be the third most popular text editor, and in 2019 the fifth most popular development environment.
WordPerfect (WP) is a word processing application, now owned by Alludo, with a long history on multiple personal computer platforms. At the height of its popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the market leader of word processors, displacing the prior market leader WordStar.
Windows Notepad is a simple text editor for Windows; it creates and edits plain text documents. First released in 1983 to commercialize the computer mouse in MS-DOS.
In computing, Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) is a software product for many historic IBM mainframe operating systems and currently the z/OS and z/VM operating systems that run on IBM mainframes. It includes a screen editor, the user interface of which was emulated by some microcomputer editors sold commercially starting in the late 1980s, including SPF/PC.
TextPad is a text editor for Microsoft Windows developed by Helios Software Solutions. It is currently in its ninth major version. TextPad was initially released in 1992 as shareware, with users requested to pay a registration fee to support future development. As of 1996 the company was an associate member of the Association of Shareware Professionals. By 1998 the company was pointing out that the editor was "shareware " and payment was necessary to continue to use it.
UltraEdit is a text editor and hex editor for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and MacOS. It was initially developed in 1994 by Ian D. Mead, the founder of IDM Computer Solutions Inc., and was acquired by Idera Inc. in August 2021. UltraEdit is designed for users who focus on different types of software engineering. It is trialware.
XEDIT is a visual editor for VM/CMS using block mode IBM 3270 terminals.
This article provides basic comparisons for notable text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the Category of text editor features and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or necessarily all-inclusive.
TextMate is a free and open-source general-purpose GUI text editor for macOS created by Allan Odgaard. TextMate features declarative customizations, tabs for open documents, recordable macros, folding sections, snippets, shell integration, and an extensible bundle system.
TED Notepad is freeware portable text editor software for Microsoft Windows, developed by Juraj Šimlovič since 2001, originally as a school project. It looks similar to Windows Notepad, but provides additional features, including experimental line completion and selection jumping.
SlickEdit, previously known as Visual SlickEdit, is a cross-platform commercial source code editor, text editor, and Integrated Development Environment developed by SlickEdit, Inc. SlickEdit has integrated debuggers for GNU C/C++, Java, WinDbg, Clang C/C++ LLDB, Groovy, Google Go, Python, Perl, Ruby, Scala, PHP, Xcode, and Android JVM/NDK. SlickEdit includes features such as built-in "beautifiers" that can enhance code as you type, code navigation, context tagging, symbol references, third-party tool integration, DIFFZilla, syntax highlighting, and 15 emulations.
The SemWare Editor (TSE) is a text editor computer program for MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows and Linux.
E is the text editor which was made part of PC DOS with version 6.1 in June 1993, in February 1995 with version 7 and later with PC DOS 2000. In version 6.1, IBM dropped QBASIC, which, in its edit mode, was also the system text editor. It was necessary to provide some sort of editor, so IBM chose to adapt and substantially extend its OS/2 System Editor (1986), a minimally functional member of the E family of Editors. The DOS version is extended with a wide array of functions that are usually associated with more functional versions of the E editor family. In version 7, IBM added the REXX language to DOS, restoring programmability to the basic box. IBM also provided E with OS/2.
Brief, is a once-popular programmer's text editor in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was originally released for MS-DOS, then IBM OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. The Brief interface and functionality live on, including via the SourceForgeGRIEF editor.
Vedit is a commercial text editor for 8080/Z-80-based systems, Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS from Greenview Data, Inc.
GNU Emacs is a text editor and suite of free software tools. Its development began in 1984 by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project of the free software movement.
Emacs, originally named EMACS, is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, self-documenting, real-time display editor". Development of the first Emacs began in the mid-1970s, and work on GNU Emacs, directly descended from the original, is ongoing; its latest version is 29.4 , released June 2024.
The first version of Microsoft Word was developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox programmers hired by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1981. Both programmers worked on Xerox Bravo, the first WYSIWYG word processor. The first Word version, Word 1.0, was released in October 1983 for Xenix and MS-DOS; it was followed by four very similar versions that were not very successful. The first Windows version was released in 1989, with a slightly improved interface. When Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, Word became a huge commercial success. Word for Windows 1.0 was followed by Word 2.0 in 1991 and Word 6.0 in 1993. Then it was renamed to Word 95 and Word 97, Word 2000 and Word for Office XP. With the release of Word 2003, the numbering was again year-based. Since then, Windows versions include Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, Word 2016, and most recently, Word for Office 365.
Sublime Text is a shareware text and source code editor available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It natively supports many programming languages and markup languages. Users can customize it with themes and expand its functionality with plugins, typically community-built and maintained under free-software licenses. To facilitate plugins, Sublime Text features a Python API. The editor utilizes minimal interface and contains features for programmers including configurable syntax highlighting, code folding, search-and-replace supporting regular-expressions, terminal output window, and more. It is proprietary software, but a free evaluation version is available.
