Notepad Pro+

With its plentiful extras and ease of customization, Notepad Pro proves to be a powerful freeware notepad replacement. It comes as a simple executable, so you won't even need to install it. The utility's plain interface is all business, and that's fine with us.

You can choose how the window appears, stripping off the menu bar, toolbar, or both. The menu bar looks like a pared down version of Windows Notepad, but it packs quite a few more options on the File menu. Programmers will love the Syntax Highlight feature, which makes it easier to spot several programming languages within text files. The tabs are a nice upgrade for multiwindow editing. Among its many other extras, Notepad Pro has enhanced printing features, a useful status bar showing character and line counts, and a tool to quickly number each line of text.

This free application is a smart text editor that's easy enough for the newbie to use, but has features that will appeal to the more advanced user.