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Notepad3 — Keyboard Shortcuts

A complete reference for the shortcuts wired into Notepad3 (src/Notepad3.rc accelerator table). The in-menu hint after each command is the live source of truth — if a future build moves a binding, the menu shows the current key first.

Looking for a different keyboard reference?


Conventions

  • Modifier order in this document: CtrlShiftAlt. Notepad3 itself accepts any order.
  • Key spellings: are the cursor arrows. + and - mean the regular keyboard keys; numeric-keypad equivalents are noted as Num+, Num-, Num0, etc., where they have a separate binding.
  • NP2 in the Notes column means "carried over unchanged from Notepad2"; (orig-NP2: …) means "this slot held a different action in Notepad2 — see the FAQ migration table for the full list".
  • Customising shortcuts is not supported in Notepad3 (the table is compiled in). See the FAQ for workarounds.

File

File operations

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+N New (clear) document NP2
Ctrl+F4 New (clear) document Alias for Ctrl+N (no MDI in Notepad3)
Ctrl+O Open file… NP2
F5 Reload current file from disk NP2
Ctrl+S Save NP2
F6 Save as… NP2
Ctrl+F6 Save a copy… NP2
Ctrl+Alt+F6 Save preserving original modification time (N3)
Ctrl+P Print… NP2
Ctrl+M Run MiniPath file browser NP2
Ctrl+Alt+H Open recent file (history)… (orig-NP2: Alt+H)
Alt+F4 Exit Notepad3 Standard Windows
Esc Cancel auto-completion popup or active selection. If neither is active, optionally minimise / exit (configurable). NP2
Shift+Esc Save current file and exit Notepad3 NP2

Path to clipboard

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+F9 Copy filename only to clipboard The IDM constant is named INSERT_FILENAME for historical reasons, but the action copies — it does not insert.
Ctrl+Shift+F9 Copy full path (directory + filename) to clipboard Same naming caveat.
Shift+F9 Copy pathname to clipboard (legacy binding) Identical to Ctrl+Shift+F9 for saved files. For untitled documents, this one copies the localised "Untitled" placeholder.

Launch / external tools

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Shift+F Search in files (grepWin) (orig-NP2: "Recode as default encoding")
Alt+N Open a new empty Notepad3 window NP2
Alt+Shift+N Duplicate current document into a new window (only when Single File Instance is off) (N3)
Ctrl+L Launch document with its associated application NP2
Alt+L "Open with…" external program NP2
Ctrl+R Run command… NP2
Ctrl+Shift+1 Web template 1 (configurable URL — pass selection / file path) (N3)
Ctrl+Shift+2 Web template 2 (N3)

Encoding

Shortcut Action Notes
F8 Recode (re-decode) — pick the source encoding to reload as NP2. Internally loaded text is kept as UTF-8; this changes how the bytes were interpreted.
F9 Open the Select Current Encoding dialog NP2
Shift+F8 Reload as UTF-8 NP2
Ctrl+Shift+F8 Reload an ASCII file as UTF-8 NP2
Alt+F8 Reload without parsing encoding tags or file variables (N3) — useful when mode: auto etc. mis-triggers a lexer
Ctrl+Shift+A Recode as system ANSI NP2
Ctrl+Shift+O Recode as system OEM NP2
Ctrl+Shift+F10 Recode as GB18030 (N3)

Favorites

Shortcut Action Notes
Alt+I Open favorites… NP2
Alt+K Add current file to favorites NP2
Alt+F9 Manage favorites… NP2

Edit

Basic clipboard / undo

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Z Undo NP2
Alt+Backspace Undo (alt) NP2
Ctrl+Shift+Y Undo (alt) NP2
Ctrl+Y Redo NP2
Ctrl+Shift+Z Redo (alt) NP2
Ctrl+X Cut selection — or cut current line if no selection (Visual-Studio style) (orig-NP2: cut only when something selected)
Shift+Del Cut (alt) NP2
Ctrl+C Copy selection — or copy current line if no selection (orig-NP2: copy only when something selected)
Alt+C Copy entire document NP2
Ctrl+E Copy add (append selection to clipboard) NP2
Ctrl+V Paste NP2
Shift+Ins Paste (alt) NP2
Ctrl+K Swap clipboard with selection NP2
Del Clear selection NP2
Ctrl+A Select all NP2
Insert Toggle Insert / Overtype mode Standard Scintilla; not advertised by the menu

Words

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Alt+Enter Complete word (autocomplete from buffer) (N3)
Ctrl+← Move caret one word left NP2
Ctrl+→ Move caret one word right NP2
Ctrl+Backspace Delete word before the caret NP2
Ctrl+Del Delete word after the caret NP2

Lines

Shortcut Action Notes
Alt+↑ Move current line / selected block up NP2
Alt+↓ Move current line / selected block down NP2
Ctrl+Shift+X Cut whole line(s) — even when only part is selected NP2
Ctrl+Shift+C Copy whole line(s) — even when only part is selected NP2
Ctrl+D Duplicate selection — or current line if no selection NP2
Alt+D Transpose lines (swap current with the one above) NP2
Ctrl+Shift+D Delete current line NP2
Ctrl+Shift+Backspace Delete from caret to start of line NP2
Ctrl+Shift+Del Delete from caret to end of line NP2
Ctrl+Shift+W Column wrap — break long lines at a column NP2
Ctrl+I Split lines at spaces (rebreak text) NP2
Ctrl+J Join lines (single-space joiner) NP2
Ctrl+Alt+J Fuse lines (no space inserted) (N3)
Ctrl+Shift+J Join lines, preserve paragraph breaks NP2
Ctrl+Alt+D Unite duplicate lines (remove duplicates within selection) (N3)
Alt+Y Merge consecutive empty lines into one NP2
Ctrl+Alt+Y Merge consecutive blank-or-whitespace-only lines (N3)
Alt+R Remove all empty lines from selection NP2
Ctrl+Alt+B Remove all blank-or-whitespace-only lines (N3)

Block & indent

Shortcut Action Notes
Tab Indent selected block — or accept autocompletion when its popup is open, or insert a tab when caret is in plain text NP2
Shift+Tab Unindent selected block NP2
Ctrl+Tab Insert a literal tab character (bypasses indent reformat) NP2
Alt+B Pad lines with trailing spaces to longest-line width NP2
Alt+Z Strip first character of each line NP2
Alt+U Strip last character of each line NP2
Alt+W Strip trailing blanks NP2
Ctrl+Alt+P Compress runs of blanks to single space NP2
Alt+M Modify lines (prefix / suffix dialog)… NP2
Alt+J Align lines… NP2
Alt+O Sort lines… NP2
Ctrl+, Jump to selection start NP2
Ctrl+. Jump to selection end NP2

Comments

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Q Toggle line comment NP2
Ctrl+/ (or Ctrl+Num/) Toggle line comment (alternative binding) (N3)
Ctrl+Alt+Q Add line comment (without toggling) (N3)
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Q Remove line comment (without toggling) (N3)
Alt+Shift+Q Block-edit line comments (multi-caret edit at comment start of each line) (N3)
Ctrl+Shift+Q Toggle stream / block comment NP2
Ctrl+Shift+/ (or Ctrl+Shift+Num/) Toggle stream comment (alternative binding) (N3)

Enclose selection

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+1 Enclose within '' (single quotes)
Ctrl+2 Enclose within "" (double quotes)
Ctrl+3 Enclose within ()
Ctrl+4 Enclose within []
Ctrl+5 Enclose within {}
Ctrl+6 Enclose within `` (backticks)
Alt+Q Enclose with custom strings (before / after dialog)…

Convert (case, encoding, hex)

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Shift+U Selection → UPPERCASE NP2
Ctrl+U Selection → lowercase NP2
Ctrl+Alt+U Invert case NP2
Ctrl+Alt+I Title Case NP2
Ctrl+Alt+O Sentence case NP2
Ctrl+Shift+T Convert spaces to tabs (everywhere in selection) NP2
Ctrl+Shift+S Convert tabs to spaces (everywhere in selection) NP2
Ctrl+Alt+T Convert indent spaces to tabs only NP2
Ctrl+Alt+S Convert indent tabs to spaces only NP2
Ctrl+Shift+E URL-encode selection NP2
Ctrl+Shift+R URL-decode selection NP2
Ctrl+F10 File-system path → URL (e.g. C:\pathfile:///C:/path) (N3)
Alt+F10 URL → file-system path (N3)
Ctrl+Alt+X Char → hex code NP2
Ctrl+Alt+C Hex code → char NP2
Ctrl+Alt+E Escape C special chars (\n etc.) NP2
Ctrl+Alt+R Unescape C special chars NP2

Insert

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Enter Insert new line above current line (orig-NP2: new line with toggled auto-indent)
Ctrl+Shift+Enter New line with toggled auto-indent option (orig-NP2: Ctrl+Enter)
Alt+X Insert HTML / XML tag… NP2
Ctrl+F8 Insert encoding identifier comment NP2
Ctrl+F5 Insert short date/time NP2
Ctrl+Shift+F5 Insert long date/time NP2
Shift+F5 Update existing timestamps in document (regex-driven) NP2. Pattern is [Settings2] TimeStampRegEx.

Numbers

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Alt++ (or Ctrl+Alt+Num+) Increase the number under the caret NP2
Ctrl+Alt+- (or Ctrl+Alt+Num-) Decrease the number under the caret NP2

Find, Replace, Goto

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+F Find… NP2
Alt+F3 Save the current find text as the persistent default NP2
F3 Find next NP2
Shift+F3 Find previous NP2
Ctrl+F3 Find next occurrence of the current selection NP2
Ctrl+Shift+F3 Find previous occurrence of the current selection NP2
Ctrl+H Replace… NP2
F4 Replace next NP2
Ctrl+G Goto line / column dialog NP2
Ctrl+Shift+F Search in files (grepWin) (orig-NP2: "Recode as default")
Ctrl+B Find matching brace — if the caret is at a brace ()[]{} jump to its match; if not at a brace, jump to the nearest enclosing opening brace. If a brace-block selection is active, the caret toggles between the two brace endpoints while preserving the selection. Shows a calltip if no match or no enclosing brace exists. NP2+
Ctrl+Shift+B Select to matching brace — selects the brace pair enclosing the caret (inclusive of both braces). Repeated presses expand the selection outward one nesting level at a time. Pressing when the caret is at the closing brace of the current selection pivots the caret to the opening brace (same selection, reversed direction); pressing again when at the opening brace expands to the next outer pair. Shows a calltip if no match or no enclosing brace exists. NP2+
Ctrl+Alt+F2 Expand selection to next match (orig-NP2: F2)
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F2 Expand selection to previous match (orig-NP2: Shift+F2)

Inside the Find / Replace dialog

A dedicated accelerator table applies while the modeless Find/Replace window has focus:

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+F Switch to Find tab
Ctrl+H Switch to Replace tab
F3 Find next (without leaving the dialog)
Shift+F3 Find previous
Alt+F3 Save current pattern as default
F4 Replace next
Ctrl+S Save dialog window position
Ctrl+R Reset dialog window position

Bookmarks

Shortcut Action Notes
F2 Goto next bookmark (orig-NP2: expand selection to next match — moved to Ctrl+Alt+F2)
Shift+F2 Goto previous bookmark (orig-NP2: expand selection to previous match)
Ctrl+F2 Toggle bookmark on current line (N3)
Alt+F2 Clear all bookmarks (N3)

Selection

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Space Select word at caret — or whole line if word already selected NP2
Ctrl+Shift+Space Multi-select all matches of word at caret (N3)
Alt+Shift+Arrows Rectangular selection NP2
Alt+Left-mouse-drag Rectangular selection NP2
Ctrl+Shift+. Copy GUID to clipboard (N3). The IDM is named INSERT_GUID for historical reasons but the action copies.

Mouse

Action Effect
Ctrl-click on a hyperlink / URL hotspot Open in default browser
Alt-click on a hyperlink Load target as a file in Notepad3
Ctrl-click on a colour swatch (when colour-hotspot highlighting is on) Open the colour picker
Ctrl-mouse-wheel Zoom in / out

View

Visual aids

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+W Toggle word wrap NP2
Ctrl+Alt+L Toggle long-line marker NP2
Ctrl+Shift+G Toggle indentation guides NP2
Ctrl+Shift+7 Toggle wrap symbols NP2
Ctrl+Shift+8 Toggle whitespace markers NP2
Ctrl+Shift+9 Toggle line-ending markers NP2
Ctrl+Alt+W Toggle hyperlink hotspots (N3)
Ctrl+Shift+V Toggle visual brace matching NP2
Ctrl+Shift+I Highlight current line NP2
Ctrl+Shift+N Toggle line numbers NP2
Ctrl+Shift+M Toggle bookmark margin NP2

Mark occurrences

Shortcut Action
Alt+A Toggle "mark all occurrences" of current word

Folding

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+Alt+F Toggle all folds (collapse / expand all)
Alt++ Jump to next fold point
Alt+- Jump to previous fold point
Alt+← Collapse current fold
Alt+→ Expand current fold

Display navigation

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Alt+V Focused View — show only lines matching word/selection (N3)
Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDn Goto previous / next block (paragraph or fold) NP2
Ctrl+Shift+PgUp / Ctrl+Shift+PgDn Select to previous / next block NP2
Alt+PageUp Paragraph navigation up (N3)
Alt+PageDown Paragraph navigation down (N3)
Ctrl+↑ Scroll one line up (without moving caret) NP2
Ctrl+↓ Scroll one line down (without moving caret) NP2

Zoom

Shortcut Action
Ctrl++ (or Ctrl+Num+) Zoom in
Ctrl+- (or Ctrl+Num-) Zoom out
Ctrl+0 (or Ctrl+Num0) Reset zoom to 100 %

Window position

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Shift+K Copy current window position to clipboard as /p x,y,cx,cy switch NP2
Ctrl+Shift+P Snap window to default position on current monitor NP2
Ctrl+F11 Snap window to internal initial-default position (N3)
F11 Toggle full-area window (full-screen) (N3)

Appearance

Shortcut Action Notes
F12 Select syntax scheme for current file NP2
Ctrl+F12 Customize schemes (colours, fonts, …) NP2
Shift+F12 Switch to the secondary common base scheme NP2
Shift+F11 Force Default Text (no syntax) on current file (N3)
Alt+F12 Change the global default font NP2
Ctrl+Alt+F12 Change the active scheme's default font (N3)

Settings

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+T Tab settings (tab width, indent width, tabs↔spaces)… NP2
Ctrl+Shift+H Toggle automatic close of HTML / XML tags NP2
Ctrl+Alt+A Toggle accelerated word navigation (alternate word separators) (N3)
Alt+F5 File-change notification settings… NP2

Window-level toggles

Shortcut Action Notes
Ctrl+Shift+L Toggle "reuse window" for next launch NP2
Alt+T Toggle "always on top" NP2
Alt+G Toggle transparent mode NP2
Ctrl+9 Display selected text excerpt in window title NP2

Configuration file

Shortcut Action
F7 Save settings now (write Notepad3.ini)
Ctrl+F7 Open Notepad3.ini in the editor

Help

Shortcut Action
F1 Open online documentation
Shift+F1 About dialog

Cheatsheet — function keys at a glance

A compact summary of the function-key family (most frequent collisions):

Key Plain Ctrl Shift Alt Ctrl+Shift Ctrl+Alt Ctrl+Shift+Alt
F1 Online docs About
F2 Goto next bookmark Toggle bookmark Goto prev bookmark Clear all bookmarks Expand sel to next match Expand sel to prev match
F3 Find next Find next selection Find previous Save find text Find prev selection
F4 Replace next New (clear) doc Exit
F5 Reload file Insert short date Update timestamps File-change notify Insert long date
F6 Save as Save copy Save preserving mtime
F7 Save settings now Open INI
F8 Recode (encoding) Insert encoding ID Reload as UTF-8 Skip encoding tags Reload ASCII as UTF-8
F9 Encoding dialog Copy filename Copy path Manage favorites Copy full path
F10 (system menu) Path → URL URL → Path Recode GB18030
F11 Fullscreen toggle Initial position Default text scheme
F12 Pick scheme Customize schemes 2nd common base Default font Scheme default font

Cheatsheet — caret & view navigation

A single-stop reference for moving the caret, scrolling the view, and jumping between document landmarks. Repeats keys already listed in the topical sections above so the cheatsheet stands alone. Notepad3 inherits Scintilla's default keymap unchanged (no SCI_ASSIGNCMDKEY overrides), so the standard caret bindings below all work even though they are not part of Notepad3's accelerator table.

Caret movement (basics)

Shortcut Action
/ Char left / right
/ Line up / down
Home / End Line start / end
Ctrl+Home / Ctrl+End Document start / end
PageUp / PageDown Page up / down
Shift+movement Extend selection in that direction
Ctrl+Shift+movement Extend selection by word / document chunk

Word navigation

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+← / Ctrl+→ Caret one word left / right
Ctrl+Backspace Delete word before caret
Ctrl+Del Delete word after caret
Ctrl+Alt+A Toggle Accelerated Word Navigation (see below)
Ctrl+Space Select word at caret (full line if word already selected)
Ctrl+Shift+Space Multi-select all matches of word at caret

Accelerated Word Navigation (Ctrl+Alt+A) merges punctuation into the word-character set, so word-jump keys (Ctrl+←, Ctrl+→, Ctrl+Backspace, Ctrl+Del) skip whole code tokens at once.

Example — caret stops in foo->bar.baz walking with Ctrl+→:

  • off: foo  |  ->  |  bar  |  .  |  baz (5 stops)
  • on: foo->bar.baz (1 stop)

Fine-tune which characters still break words via [Settings2] ExtendedWhiteSpaceChars= — see config/Configuration.md. The toggle is persisted in [Settings] AccelWordNavigation=.

View / scroll

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+↑ / Ctrl+↓ Scroll one line up / down (caret stays put)
Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDn Goto previous / next block (paragraph or fold)
Ctrl+Shift+PgUp / Ctrl+Shift+PgDn Select to previous / next block
Alt+PageUp / Alt+PageDown Paragraph navigation up / down
Ctrl+Alt+V Focused View — show only lines matching word/selection
Ctrl+G Goto line / column dialog

Bookmarks & change history

Shortcut Action
F2 Goto next bookmark — falls through to next change-history marker if no further bookmark is found (sticky)
Shift+F2 Goto previous bookmark — same fallback
Ctrl+F2 Toggle bookmark on current line
Alt+F2 Clear all bookmarks

If the document has no bookmarks (or none ahead of the caret in the search direction), F2 / Shift+F2 walk change-history markers instead — modified, saved, and reverted lines shown in the change-history margin (see View → Change History). Once a press has landed the caret on a change-history marker, repeated presses keep walking change-history markers until you reach a bookmarked line.

Find navigation

Shortcut Action
F3 Find next
Shift+F3 Find previous
Ctrl+F3 Find next occurrence of current selection
Ctrl+Shift+F3 Find previous occurrence of current selection
F4 Replace next
Ctrl+Alt+F2 Expand selection to next match
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F2 Expand selection to previous match
Alt+A Toggle "mark all occurrences" of current word

Brace navigation

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+B Find matching brace (or jump to nearest enclosing opening brace)
Ctrl+Shift+B Select to matching brace; repeated presses expand the selection outward one nesting level at a time

Folding

Shortcut Action
Alt+← / Alt+→ Collapse / expand current fold
Alt+- / Alt++ Jump to previous / next fold point
Ctrl+Alt+F Toggle all folds

Selection-boundary jumps

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+, Jump caret to selection start
Ctrl+. Jump caret to selection end

See also

  • faq/FAQ.md"Migrating from Notepad2" lists every shortcut whose meaning was reassigned, plus the why.
  • cmdln/CmdLnOptions.md — full command-line reference.
  • config/Configuration.md[Settings2] keys that affect editor behaviour.
  • minipath/KeyboardShortcuts.md — keyboard shortcuts for the bundled MiniPath file browser.
  • Build/Docs/KeyboardShortcuts.txt — the plain-text version that ships with releases (auto-derived; this Markdown is the canonical edited copy).