Hi all,

How can I change the Windows Notepad default saving encoding from ANSI to Unicode?

I manage many Unicode-based text.

Is there a workaround so that I do not need to set saving encoding everytime I open and save a new notepad?

Thanks in advance.

wa.. tht's interesting too.. i wanted to know too

Don't think you can, checked HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad but can't see any related settings you can tweak around there (not sure if IfCharSet does you the job)

Maybe you can try more advanced text editor like UltraEdit

This post has been edited by samurai1337: Sep 22 2006, 08:19 PM

if you're using it on the web then i suggest you take samurai1337's advice. give up notepad. when saving as unicode (UTF-8), notepad adds a signature/ byte-order mark, that is not required in UTF-8. it will break your unicode UTF-8 pages (sometimes) to the extent that you will need a hex editor to fix them.

Thanks for all your advice.

So, using 3rd party apps will be better, rite? e.g. UltraEdit? Notepad++?

Yes, if you're going for freeware, I'd suggest Notepad++ or PSPad

pspad is recommended , using it now

Notepad2 looks mostly like notepad original, included UTF-8 support of course.

This post has been edited by eek-1: Nov 6 2006, 12:17 PM

UltraEdit is quite a better shot. With it, you can even program in other programming languages with the syntax codes highlighted, not to mention the flexible hex editor in it.

after tracing it for a little while with ollydebugger, well, got a solution

the idea is like below.
if the document haven't been saved before (new), and when you click save as or save, only 3 types works, {unicode, unicode big endian and utf8 = default to utf8 (although it shows ansi in the encode combobox)}

if you open a saved .txt (ansi, uni, unibig or utf8), it would save to its opened format.

the save default to UTF8 only works on new document you created.

copy the modified one into c:\windows and c:\windows\system32
and backup the old one.

to save a new document into ansi, what you could do is, right click and choose new => text document (on desktop or any folder) and save it, then u can use this mod notepad to open or save it ~ would save into ansi format.

a little bit about what code i inject



i modify the following


to



well, you could always modify urself using the ollydebug
for those who have no idea what i am talking about, u can download the mod notepad from here (modified windows xp notepad)


disclaimer : i am not responsible if you OS crashed or etc etc or virus or spyware or etc etc.

This post has been edited by sleepsleep: Nov 9 2006, 12:47 AM


Attached File(s)
 NOTEPAD.zip ( 32.64k ) Number of downloads: 47