14 DAY TRIAL // Text editing is one of the main tasks that made the PC so popular, and things moved further a lot in the last 20 years, from rudimentary command line and text interface editors to the good looking and well featured text editing tools that we get to use these days. I am sure that the future will make these tools obsolete one day, since we're getting close to the moment when we'll be able to interact with the computers just like we do today with other people. Anyway, getting back to the present day, we have to talk about another text editor that I have found, so let's get to it!
The name of the text editing tool I have here is NotePro, its latest version is 3.63 and you'll have to pay for using it for more than 30 days, so we're talking about a commercial product here. You don't have to worry about your money, because I have the shareware version here, the same one that you can get for free. If you decide to buy this program, you'll have to pay 19.95$ for it, which shouldn't be that much...if all things are right, of course!
NotePro's setup package has 4.4MB in size and installing it was as easy as one-two-three, so since we settled this, the time has come to move on and check if this program's looks and features are worth its price.
NotePro's interface looks good, but not amazing. The best part about this program's interface is, as usual, that everything is well organized, making its use really easy. The graphics on the toolbars look good and, even better, you can customize the tools available inside each toolbar as you like. These being said, we got to the moment of truth where we start exploring the features available inside this text editing tool, so...let's go!
The first thing I want to know about each text editor I see is, after the multi editing feature (NotePro has it, of course, so no worries with that!), the range of file formats supported. I can't say I am ecstatic with how things look on this side, but I am not that sad either, because NotePro can work with RTF, TXT, DOC, WRI and HTML files. Needless to say you will also be able to open and save files with unknown extensions, as long as they are plain text files.
OK, so we can open ten files and edit them at the same time. Good, but what next? Hmmm...how's a spell checker and a thesaurus, for the start? I wasn't really pleased by the search and replace features, but the built in checker and thesaurus are really good!
Unfortunately, this program doesn't offer us a tool panel with all those great features concerning project management and that usually included a FTP client. Well, sometimes you have to go on with what you got, and you all know what I got...or maybe you're a new reader, and in that case I have to tell you the magic name: PSPad!
The zoom levels available in this program start at 25% and can go up to 500%, which is just great for my eyes. After all, you don't need a miracle to see again, but only enough zoom...
The HTML editing features are not really strong, but you can use NotePro to easily add links to other documents or insert tables into the one you are currently working on. A built in calculator and a character map are some of the other interesting tools that you can find here, but you can take your time and do some exploring by yourselves, maybe I just missed some hidden treasures, who knows?
At last, I must say that the Options area of this program wasn't quite as expected. First, it was the quantity, and second, the quality. Of course I may be wrong, but unfortunately I think I am not. After all, there's always a better free program to use as a standard... but let's leave this issue behind and jump straight to the conclusions about NotePro, shall we?
The Good
NotePro is an interesting text editor that's easy to use, allows multiple file editing, looks good and comes with a comprehensive built in documentation.
The Bad
This program is not free, and I have a better alternative, and that's bad enough, really!
The Truth
I hope you won't get me wrong, but the fact that I wouldn't buy NotePro in a million years doesn't mean this program is bad. You may try this program for an entire month, and if you have enough time to try a new text editor, please take your time and go ahead!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
