List of text editors

The following is a list of text editors. For a list of outliners, see that article's external links.

Graphical and text user interface

The following editors can either be used with a Graphical user interface or a Text user interface.

System default

• Extensible Versatile Editor (EVE) (default under OpenVMS) – EVE is implemented using TPU.

Free software

• Aquamacs Emacs – A distribution of GNU Emacs heavily modified to behave like a Mac program.
• Cream – A configuration of Vim.
• Elvis
• GNU Emacs/XEmacs – two long-existing forks of the popular Emacs programmer's editor. Emacs and vi are the dominant text editors on Unix-like operating systems, and have inspired the editor wars.
• Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE) – Programmer's Editor for OpenVMS implemented using TPU.
• vile (vi like Emacs) – A vi work-alike which retains the vi command-set while adding new features: multiple windows and buffers, infinite undo, colorization, scriptable expansion capabilities, etc.
• vim is based on the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface
• Yi editor

Graphical user interface

System default

• E (E.EXE) (default under IBM OS/2 versions 2-4)^{[citation needed]}
• gedit (default under GNOME)^[1]
• Leafpad (default under LXDE)^[2]
• Kate/KWrite (default under KDE)^[3]
• Mousepad (default under Xfce)^[4]
• Notepad (default under Microsoft Windows)^[5]
• SimpleText (default under Classic Mac OS from version 7.5)^[6]
• TeachText (default under Classic Mac OS versions prior to 7.5)^[7]
• TextEdit (default under Mac OS X)^[8]
• XEDIT (default under VM/CMS)^{[citation needed]}

Free software

• Acme – A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike
• AkelPad – Еditor for plain text. It is designed to be a small and fast. Many plugins.
• Arachnophilia
• Bluefish – Web development editor
• ConTEXT
• Crimson Editor
• Geany – fast and lightweight editor / IDE, uses GTK+
• gedit – a simple GNOME text editor, fairly equivalent to KEdit
• J – Text editor written in Java, part of the ArmedBear Common Lisp (ABCL) project
• jEdit – free cross-platform programmer's editor written in Java, GPL licensed
• JOVE – Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs
• JuffEd – lightweight text editor written in Qt4
• Kate – basic text editor for the KDE desktop
• Kile – User friendly TeX/LaTeX editor
• Kod – Mac OS-X only, TextMate-like
• KWrite – default editor on KDE
• Leo – a text editor that features outlines with clones as its central tool of organization and navigation
• mcedit – text editor provided with Midnight Commander
• Metapad – Windows Notepad replacement, GPL licensed
• MicroEMACS
• NEdit – "Nirvana Editor"
• Notepad++ – a tabbed text editor
• Notepad2
• Pe – a text editor for BeOS
• Programmer's Notepad
• RText
• Sam
• SciTE
• TeXnicCenter
• TextMate
• The Hessling Editor
• UniRed – Windows text editor supporting many encodings
• X11 Xedit
• Yudit

Freeware

• BBEdit Lite
• Eddie – A text editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and Mac OS X.
• GetDiz – a free Notepad alternative for Windows
• HxD for huge text files
• Komodo Edit
• LEd – LaTeX Editor
• NoteTab Light
• Programmer's File Editor (PFE)
• PSPad – editor for Microsoft Windows with various programming environments
• RJ TextEd
• Q10 – Full screen text editor (Windows)
• TED Notepad
• TeXShop – TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer
• TextWrangler

Personal license (free for individuals)

• HTML Kit

Proprietary

• Alphatk
• BBEdit
• CodeWright
• GoldED (text editor of Cubic IDE)
• CygnusEd (CED)
• E Text Editor
• EditPlus
• EmEditor
• Epsilon
• GWD Text Editor
• iA Writer
• Inlage LaTeX Editor
• Kedit text editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM XEDIT
• NoteTab
• PolyEdit
• skEdit (formerly called skHTML)
• SlickEdit
• Smultron – a Mac OS X text editor
• Source Insight
• SubEthaEdit (formerly called Hydra)
• Sublime Text
• Tex-Edit Plus
• TextPad and Wildedit
• The SemWare Editor (TSE) (formerly called QEdit)
• Tincta / Tincta Pro (Mac OS X)
• TopStyle
• UltraEdit
• Ulysses
• VEDIT
• WinEdt

Text user interface

System default

• E was the text editor in PC-DOS 7 and PC-DOS 2000.
• EDIT was the text editor in DR DOS 6.0, Novell DOS 7, Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 and DR-DOS 7.02 and higher.^{[citation needed]}
• ed has been the default editor on Unix since the birth of Unix. Either ed or a compatible editor is available on all systems labeled as Unix (not by default on every one)
• ee, which stands for easy editor, is part of the base system of FreeBSD, along with vi.^[9]
• edlin was the default editor on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT.
• MS-DOS Editor is the default on MS-DOS since version 5 and is included with all 32-bit versions of Windows that do not rely on a separate copy of DOS.
• nvi (installed as vi by default in BSD operating systems and some Linux distributions) – A free replacement for the original vi which maintains compatibility while adding some new features.
• vi is the default for Unix systems and must be included in all POSIX compliant systems^[10] – One of the earliest screen-based editors, it is based on ex.

Free software

• Diakonos – a customizable, usable console-based text editor.
• Emacs – A screen-based editor with an embedded computer language, Emacs Lisp. Early versions were implemented in TECO, see below.
• JED
• JOE – A modern screen-based editor with a sort of enhanced-WordStar style to the interface, but can also emulate Pico.
• LE
• mcedit – Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems.
• MinEd – Text editor with user-friendly interface, mouse and menu control, and extensive Unicode and CJK support; for Unix/Linux and Windows/DOS.
• Nano – An open source clone of Pico.
• ne – a minimal, modern replacement for vi.
• SETEDIT – a clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs
• vim is based on the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface
• Zile

Freeware

• Pico

Proprietary

• The SemWare Editor (TSE for DOS) (formerly called QEdit)

No user interface (editor libraries/toolkits)

• Scintilla (editing component) is used as the core of several text editors.
• Text Processing Utility (TPU) – language and runtime package, developed by DEC, used to implement the Language-Sensitive Editor and Extensible Versatile Editor, Eve.

ASCII and ANSI art

Editors that are specifically designed for the creation of ASCII and ANSI text art.

• ACiDDraw – Designed for editing ASCII text art. Supports ANSI color (ANSI X3.64).
• PabloDraw – ANSI/ASCII editor allowing multiple users to edit via TCP/IP network connections.
• TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor for MS DOS and PCBoard file format support.

ASCII font editors

• FIGlet – For creating ASCII Art text.
• TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor with built-in editor and manager of ASCII fonts.

Collaborative

Historical

Visual and full-screen editors

• Brief – A very popular programmer's editor for DOS and OS/2.
• Edit application – A programmer's editor for Classic Mac OS.
• MS-DOS Editor – A menu-based editor introduced to supersede edlin in MS-DOS version 5.0 and up. Still available under Microsoft Windows, but seldom used.
• EDT – A character based editor used on DEC PDP-11s and VAXen.
• O26 – written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series machines in the mid-1960s
• Red – A VAX/VMS editor, written in Forth variant STOIC.
• se – An early screen-based editor for Unix.
• SED – Cross-platform editor from the 1980s, ran on TOPS-10, TOPS-20 and VMS.
• STET (the 'STructured Editing Tool') – may have been the first folding editor; its first version was written in 1977.
• TeachText
• TECO – One of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language. While usually described as a line editor, it included screen editing capabilities at least as early as 1965.

Line editors

• Colossal Typewriter – An early editor thought to be written for the PDP-1
• ed – (1) Unix's early line editor, (2) CP/M's line editor.
• edlin – A line editor delivered with MS-DOS.
• ex – An EXtended version of Unix's ed, later evolved into the visual editor vi.
• GEDIT (aka George 3 EDITor) is a TECO-like editor including a programming language for the GEC 4000 series computers. GEDIT was originally written by David Toll of Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, and then adopted by GEC Computers for OS4000.
• sed – A non-interactive programmable stream editor available in Unix.
• TECO – One of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language.
• TEDIT – GEC 4000 series editor based on the Cambridge Titan EDIT
• QED

Notes

See also

• Comparison of text editors
• List of word processors
• Editor war
• Source code editor