Hello, @mm-tsuchi, @terry-r and All,

@mm-tsuchi, The behavior, that you’ve found out, seems definitively a bug , I’m afraid :-‘’

Let’s test with the beginning of the change.log file, copied in a new tab :

Notepad++ v8.8.7 new features & bug-fixes: 1. Sign Notepad++ binaries with GlobalSign certificat to fix false-positive alerts. 2. Fix Monitoring in one view affects selections and position in second view. 3. Fix Shortcut Mapper memory leak issue. 4. Enhance Perl FunctionList for class. 5. Fix pressing Alt or Tab causes controls redrawing problem in UDL dialog. Notepad++ v8.8.6 new features & bug-fixes: 1. Add capacity of pasting multiline into Find/Replace fields. 2. Improve UAC in Notepad++ for seamless elevated operations. 3. Fix Pin Tab operation being too long with many opened documents. 4. Add 2 new full-readonly modes via command line argument (-fullReadOnly & -fullReadOnlySavingForbidden). 5. Add apply/remove read-only for all documents commands. 6. Column Editor enhancement: GUI input fields now support radix to match the output format. 7. Add Window dialog "File Modified Time" sorting capacity. 8. Fix NPPN_CMDLINEPLUGINMSG not working issue & define the pluginMessage usage protocol. 9. Fix pasting from column mode to multi-selection issue due to different EOL. 10. Add NPPM_GETNPPSETTINGSDIRPATH message to get Notepad++ settings directory path. 11. Enhance SQL function list parser. 12. Fix C# function list not working with comments. 13. Add function list ability for CSS. 14. Allow user to customize max selected chars to auto-fill "Find what" field. 15. Restore undo/redo behaviour in Find/Replace fields after Copy/Paste or Ctrl-F. 16. Fix text corruption issue caused by selection within multibyte characters. 17. Fix DOCTYPE styling in xml and html. 18. Fix double clicking on edit zone border creates a new tab issue. 19. Update cURL in WinGUp (Notepad++ updater) for fixing security issue CVE-2025-5399.

And let’s start with a fresh portable v8.8.7 release of N++. After launching Notepad++.exe for the first time, if you move to the Preferences... > Searching panel, you should see this snapshot :

ba0aed16-e512-4b4d-bf11-8d3cbde6d7b5-Capture d'écran 2025-11-18 103552.png

So, you can verify that, by default, the two options Fill Find Field with Selected Text and Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected are checked

In this configuration, no problem at all regarding the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands which work as expected !

Now, as soon as you unchecked the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, note that it also unchecks, automatically the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected option and the Max characters to Auto-Fill Find Field from Selection option, as well !

With that new configuration :

Double-clic on the first Add word of the text

Open the Find dialog ( Ctrl + F )

=> The Find what zone should be empty ( logical, because of the settings ! )

Note that the Wrap around option is checked by default and the search mode is set to normal

Type the word Add in the Find what zone

Click once on the Find next button to jump to the next occurrence of the Add word

Close the Find what zone ( Esc )

You can check that the F3 / Shift + F3 shortcuts ( Normal search ) or the Ctrl + Alt + F3 / Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F3 shortcuts ( Volatile search ) work as expected

However, the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands do nothing. This is also logical because of the new settings !

Now, just put the caret within any Add word. if you hit the F3 key, it does find the next Add word ! Don’t be mistaken : it found the Add word just because the Find what zone still contains the Add word as the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected is uncheked

To be convinced, simply put your caret within an other word Fix : hitting the F3 key still search the next occurrence of the Add word and not the Fix word !

Now, double-click on any Fix word. The only possibility to search this new word is to use the Alt + Ctrl + F3 or Alt + Ctrl + Shift + F3 shortcuts. However, if you open the Find dialog, as this kind of search is volatile, the Find what zone will still contains the Add word !

So, IMO, how to fix this issue :

Forbid the Select And Find ... options when the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, in settings, is unchecked. This seems logical as current selected text never fills the Find what zone !

But, allow the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected setting to be checked, independently of the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option. So, putting caret within any word, would still select this word and placed it in the Find what zone of the Find dialog for search !

Best Regards,

guy038

@me

I printed out a cookie recipe in NP++ and LO Writer

Try to be more explicit. I actually use LibreOffice and, until @PeterJones explicitly stated it in his response, I had no idea what you were talking about when you said “LO”.

@JuergenBelle ,

Further to what @h-jangra said, since N++ v8.8.6, you can just paste your multi-line text into the Replace, and use the Search @h-jangra suggested, and you don’t need the plugin at all…

If your replacement has parentheses () or dollar signs $, it might not work as you expect, so you might have to escape them, as described in the user manual (https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/searching/#substitutions)

@guy038

More good information. Thank you!

Barry

Hello!

I’m having a similar problem with NPP being slow to open, and I believe it’s related to the fact that I have several “draft” (unsaved) files saved, since I have the options enabled: backup and remember last session.
This has already been reported in another post:

https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/14000

In my case, I have an SSD and it takes about 20 seconds to load about 200 files. So it spends about 0.1 seconds per file.

I did some tests using Process Monitor, as shown in the image below.

notepad.png

In this case, it seems that NPP keeps trying to create files in the “Program Files” folder, but it gives a “NAME NOT FOUND” error.
After that, it goes to the “AppData/Roaming…” folder where the backup files are located.

In short, based on this result, does anyone have any idea how to try to solve this delay, perhaps caused by failures or repeated attempts to read/write the backup files?

@Alan, listen to @PeterJones when he says to scan your computer for viruses. TextShaping.dll is commonly used in DLL sideloading exploits, and if your executables are trying to call it when it resides in a place it doesn’t belong (your Notepad++ directory), then there’s a good chance your computer has been hacked.

That doesn’t mean you should freak out just yet, just take some steps to ensure that you’re not hacked.

All the gup.exe does is to check if there is a newer version than specified by the string input parameter is available. It does not handle the update itself. You would have to code it for yourself.

For example like this in Powershell 5.1 for the 64bit version of Notepad++.

[string]$ScriptFolder = $PSCommandPath | Split-Path -Parent $Notepad = Get-ItemProperty -LiteralPath 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Notepad++' $InstalledVersion = $Notepad.DisplayVersion $UpdateCheck = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://notepad-plus-plus.org/update/getDownloadUrl.php?version=$InstalledVersion" $UpdateCheckAnswer = ([xml]$UpdateCheck.Content).GUP if ($UpdateCheckAnswer.NeedToBeUpdated -eq 'yes') { $Filename = $UpdateCheckAnswer.Location.Split('/')[-1] Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $UpdateCheckAnswer.Location -OutFile "$ScriptFolder\$Filename" & "$ScriptFolder\$Filename" '/S /closeRunningNpp' }

@Rick-Kosters, .docx files are compressed files, so unless you’re able to uncompress them first, you’ll never be able to use a third-party program to search them.

For what it’s worth, 7-ZIP, Pkzip, WinZip, WinRAR, etc are all capable of opening those files. If you do unzip them, you’ll find a number of files and folders. What you’re looking for is most likely in word\document.xml.

Hi everyone!

I have some good news and bad news.

The good news is that I’ve finished WebEdit 2.9, which includes several new features: multi-select support, tag recommendations, quick tag addition/editing, and a few other minor upgrades.

The bad news is that I’ve actually finished all the essential features I wanted to implement, so I’m not planning any further developments for the time being. Of course, you can still report bugs/issues and even make minor development suggestions, but the goal remains to keep the plugin fast, lightweight and easy to use.

The overview of the (new) features is also available on the module’s main page: https://github.com/Krazal/WebEdit

What’s next: when I have time, I’d like to return to my own plugin, because it has been full of bugs for months (not my fault!). ^^’

Thank you for letting me contribute to this plugin, which I hope others will find just as great and useful as me!

@James-Burke-0 ,
In addition to what @PeterJones has explained, the only other thing you could do, is bring up dBASEPlus in the Language->User Defined Language->Define your language...User language drop down box, and then `Save As’ and give it a new name.

At that point, you can play with the settings, keywords, etc… all you want in your own named UDL. Because of the way the entire UDL ecosystem works, however, you’ll lose the ability to use the autoComplete file and the functionList file as well, because of their links to the UDL’s file names that those work with, as well as the overrideMap.xml linkage file, but you’d have JUST the UDL to adjust to your likings and then when you’re satisfied, you could go back to the original dBASEPlus UDL and put the changes that you want into the Dialog boxes for the language and then do as @PeterJones says, and just close and reopen the editor and your changes will be applied to the intalled dBASEPlus UDL definition.

If you don’t need the Function List or Auto Complete capability, you can just use your newly named version of the dBASEPlus UDL to view and edit dBASE specific files.

Just in case this is what you meant you wanted to do, to customize the dBASEPlus UDL without losing the original functionality of the original package. I hope this helps.

@Jerry-Scannell said in backward search doesn't work any longer:

All of a sudden searching backwards through a file doesn’t work and I have to have proper case for strings I am searching. Does anyone know about this? Is it a setting that has changed for some reason? I am using version 8.7.5 if that helps.
Thanks in advance,
Paul

That setting hasn’t changed since 2020 (v7.8.7).

If you are in Regular Expression search mode, you cannot do backward search, unless you have followed the User Manual instructions (https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/preferences/#preferences-for-advanced-users) to set the regexBackward4PowerUser attribute in the xml config file, and restarted N++.

But, as I said, this is nothing new. So a “sudden change” presumably was you choosing Regular Expression mode.

Thank you guys all so very much, now that I know that it’s a GVAS file, I’ll chase down that lead and try to get somewhere!!!

@Pieter-Hoeben

You probably have the “Search Mode” set to “Regular expression”. Change it to “Normal”.

@James-Burke-0 said in Avoiding Tabbed Spaces:

Is there a toggle for NPP to NOT insert tabbed spaces at the beginning of a line? Somewhere in Preferences, perhaps?

You probably want Settings | Preferences… | Indentation | Indent using: Space character(s).

@mpheath

I had to save the UDL with and it worked very well, thank you very much!

Just a heads up for recent N++ users, search for the text no-break space in Windows Character Map, select it at top left and copy/paste into a UTF encoded N++ window with Word wrap and View>Show Non-Printing Characters ticked, it shows up as NBSP highlighted.
Or, the character is pasted here on the next line:
 
Works at least in the unposted forum edit box - but not in the preview pane it seems.