Microsoft has officially announced the addition of new features to its Windows Notepad app.
The Redmond, Washington-based company revealed on Saturday, May 31, 2025, that the significant Notepad update is available for Canary and Dev Channel testers on Windows 11, and releases bold and italic styling, alongside hyperlinks and even Markdown support.
Microsoft releases new feature to Notepad app
Notepad app now has a formatting toolbar at the top of the app, alongside the existing File, Edit, and View options.
The toolbar includes access to bold, italic, and hyperlink options, but it also provides support for lists and headings.
To note, the Notepad app is usually used with plain text, you can also easily clear all formatting from the formatting toolbar or the edit menu in the app.
Microsoft Principal Group Product Manager Dave Grochocki stated, “The experience supports Markdown style input and files for users who prefer to work directly with the lightweight markup language.”
“You can switch between formatted Markdown and Markdown syntax views in the view menu or by selecting the toggle button in the status bar at the bottom of the window,” Grochocki added.
The new “Write” feature in Notepad can be used to “quickly draft text based on your prompt,” and alongside these formatting options, Notepad is starting to look a lot more like Microsoft Word.
It is worth noting that the Notepad app has received multiple features since Microsoft removed WordPad from Windows.
