DocPad

The program offers greater flexibility than the standard NotePad, though it's not as powerful as programming-oriented programs such as UltraEdit. With DocPad, you can easily change text case, indent text blocks, and convert encoding. DocPad provides useful tools for HTML coding, including a character map and a color picker. It allows quite sophisticated text manipulations, such as alphabetizing or randomizing paragraphs. It can even record macros to speed up repetitive actions. Several skins are available to customize the interface. You can minimize the program to the tray to have it at your fingertips without cluttering the Taskbar. On the downside, DocPad tries to access the Internet each time it starts, though it works fine even when access is denied. Overall, though, we can recommend this freeware app as a replacement for NotePad.