Notepad++ is an extremely powerful (and free!) text editor. Its find and replace tools can do everything from a simple search and replace in a single file to a regular expression-based search and replace across thousands of files at once. Notepad++ is particularly ideal for quickly editing and changing data in CSV files, but it’s also amazing for editing HTMLTop 11 HTML Tags Every Blogger & Website Owner Must KnowTop 11 HTML Tags Every Blogger & Website Owner Must KnowThe world wide web knows many languages and is coded in several different ones. The one language however, that can be found all over and has been around since the invention of webpages, is the...Read More, CSS4 Free and Excellent Tools for Editing CSS Code4 Free and Excellent Tools for Editing CSS CodeWebsites are wondrous tools which convey all sorts of information and ideas. They have evolved quite a lot in merely 10 to 15 years, and they are now expected to be top-notch and beautifully designed....Read More, TXTEdit Text Files In Your Dropbox From Your Browser With TextDropAppEdit Text Files In Your Dropbox From Your Browser With TextDropAppEdit any text file in your Dropbox from your browser. It's easy to with TextDropApp, a web-based text editor that uses Dropbox for storage. Whether you want to edit text documents from Chrome OS or...Read More – or any other type of file that can be opened and edited as text.
Comma separated value (CSV) files are a standard way of exchanging data between spreadsheets, databases, and other applicationsHow To Move Your Contacts From Windows Mobile To AndroidHow To Move Your Contacts From Windows Mobile To AndroidRead More. If you’d like to tweak the data before importing it into another application, Notepad++’s search and replace tools are just the ticket.
I have multiple, identical comma delimited txt files generated from an analytical instrument. I need to extract data from specific parts of the csv file, compute some simple statistics (average, standard deviation) on that data, and output the statistics and the file name to a separate file.
Basic Search & Replace
To start performing a search and replace, open the file you want to edit in Notepad++, click the Search menu at the top of the window, and select Find. (You can also press Ctrl+F.) Click the Replace tab, enter your desired text in the Find what and Replace with boxes, and click Replace All.
Although this is a basic, single-document search and replace with no regular expressions, you can customize it quite a bit. For example, if you only want to search and replace for text in part of the file, enable the In selection check box here and select a section of text in the file with your mouse. You can also enable the Match whole word only or Match case check boxes – by default, Notepad++ performs a case-insensitive search and matches all text, whether it’s an entire word or just part of a word.
Search & Replace In Multiple Files
You can easily open multiple documents in Notepad++ – for example, by right-clicking them in Windows ExplorerHow To Improve Windows Explorer By Adding New ColumnsHow To Improve Windows Explorer By Adding New ColumnsWindows Explorer is one of the most used Windows applications and at the same time probably also the least acknowledged productivity tool. You are using Windows Explorer every day to interact with your computer as...Read More and selecting Edit in Notepad++. Once you have, you can use the Replace All in All Opened Documents button instead of the Replace All button to perform a search and replace in all open documents in Notepad++. Once you’ve performed the search and replace, you can click the File menu and select Save All to save all your opened files with a single click.
If you have a directory full of files you want to perform a search and replace on, you can select the Find in Files tab in the search and replace window (or press Ctrl+Shift+F).
From here, you can specify a directory of files you want to perform a search and replace onHow to Find and Replace Words in Multiple FilesHow to Find and Replace Words in Multiple FilesWhat do you do if you have to replace a single word in dozens or even thousands, of text files? You keep calm and download Notepad++ or Replace Text to do the job in seconds.Read More. By default, Notepad++ will perform a search and replace on all files in subdirectories under this main directory – uncheck the In all sub-folders check box if you just want to perform a search and replace on the files in the top-level directory. You can also use the Filters box to only perform a search and replace on certain files – for example, you could use the filter *.csv to only perform a search and replace on .csv files or *.csv ; *.txt to perform a search and replace on both .csv and .txt files.
Multi-Line Search & Replace
The dialogs built into Notepad++ have one obvious limitation – they can’t search for a multiple-line section of text and replace it. If you’re replacing a chunk of code with another chunk of code, this can be important. To easily perform a multi-line search and replace, try the ToolBucket plugin. You can install it by clicking the Plugins menu in Notepad++, pointing to Plugin Manager, selecting Show Plugin Manager, clicking the check box next to ToolBucket in the list of available plugins, and clicking Install.
After restarting Notepad++ to enable the plugin, click the Plugins menu, point to ToolBucket, and select Multiline find and replace (or press Alt+Shift+F). Unlike Notepad++’s built-in dialogs, this dialog accepts multiple lines of text.
For more awesome Notepad++ plugins, check out our list of recommended Notepad++ pluginsSoup Up The Notepad++ Text Editor With Plugins From The Notepad Plus Repository [Windows]Soup Up The Notepad++ Text Editor With Plugins From The Notepad Plus Repository [Windows]Notepad++ is a worthy replacement for Windows’ in-built and much loved text editor, and comes highly recommended if you’re a programmer, web designer or simply someone who finds themselves in need of a powerful plain...Read More.
Extended Search & Replace
Both the single-file and multiple-file search and replace tools support three different search modes – along with the normal search mode, there’s an extended search mode and one that accepts regular expressions.
In extended mode, Notepad++ will accept some specific escape sequences that match special characters – for example, you can search and replace a line feed, carriage return, or tab character. Here are some of the most commonly used escape sequences:
n – Line feed character. (End-of-line character on Linux, Mac OS X, and other UNIX-like operating systems.)
r – Carriage return character. (End-of-line character on Windows.)
t – Tab character.
For example, if you wanted to replace all the tab characters in a file, you’d specify t in the Find box. This can be incorporated into a find and replace string with other characters. Remember, to use these escape sequences, you’ll need to enable Extended mode (they also work in Regular Expression mode).
Regular Expressions
Notepad++ also supports regular expressions. Regular expressions are a powerful tool for advanced users that can match and modify nearly any type of text you can imagine. For example, the regular expression [0-9] will match all characters between 0 and 9. If you have a file with words like test1, test2, and test3, you can perform a search for test[0-9] and the regular expression will match test1, test2, and test3 – but not testb.
A full tutorial on regular expressions wouldn’t fit here, as it would require an entire book. If you want help learning and testing regular expressions, check out RegExrRegExr: Web Based Regular Expression Testing ToolRegExr: Web Based Regular Expression Testing ToolRead More or Rejex, two web-based regular expression tools we’ve covered in the directory. The Notepad++ wiki also contains a tutorial on using regular expressions in Notepad++.
For more awesome Windows software, check out our list of the best Windows software – Notepad++ is on the list!
How To Search Multiple Files
Do you have any experience using Notepad++’s advanced find and replace tools? Leave a comment and share your knowledge!
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Search Multiple Csv Files For Text Machine
Can Notepad ++ do a find a replace based on an array or table? I have 261 numbers that need to be found and replaced, I have the data in a table.
Problem solved.
I have been searching far & wide for a component that can find a word or a collection of letters in an Excel csv file and thought I'd found the Holly Grail when I came across Notepad ++.
I probably have, but am not using it correctly.
I would like to find 'BZM', however it does find some of the occurrences, but not all of them for some reason.
Is this because usage of Notepad ++ is limited on the free version please?
I love notepad++.
It has many features, addons.This is the best Notepad I've ever used. It made me work easily with a lot of source codes...
I use TextPad for handling CSV files. Prove the functionality you describe for NotePad + + and decide which to use (TextPad is not free). Thanks for your article Chris
I can also recommend ConTEXT which is also capable of syntax highlighting for a wide range of programming languages.
I'm using this in Windows. Great
at one point before I got microsoft expression studio and visual studio I used notepad ++ for all my needs and found it a simple and great way for programming and coding websites! it's a great tool for someone with an old computer who justs wants a bit of lightweight programming software!
Notepad++ is already my favorite for years.
It easy, portable lightweight and has addons.I can't function without it anymore.
I use it previously, nice application, but now i use RJTextEditor, also a great one i think.
uncommon great software
I've never found anything to beat Notetab. (not Notepad, not Notepad++, but NOTETAB. There's no beating it for what I need. (And yes, I paid for the full version.)
The 'Extended' mode of search & replace does the job of multi-line search & replace as well...instead of hitting RETURN, use rn (for Windows-formatted text files) as a carriage return. No plugin needed.
I used to use notepad a lot on my pc's ... what is there for Mac that's comparable??