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

* Vim (installed as vi by default in some Linux distributions) — A modern vi work-alike with more features, including a scripting interface for Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl and Scheme.
* 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 that is easy to learn and use.
* GNU Emacs/XEmacs — two 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.
* Yi editor

Graphical user interface

System default

* Notepad (default under Microsoft Windows)
* SimpleText (default under Classic Mac OS)
* TextEdit (default under Mac OS X)
* XEDIT (default under VM/CMS)
* Edit (default under RISC OS)
* ed (no relation to unix-ed, default under AmigaOS)
* Gedit (default under GNOME (Linux))
* Kwrite (default under KDE (Linux))

Free software (free/libre/open-source)

* Acme — A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike
* AkelPad
* Beaver
* Bluefish
* Caditor - Portable text editor with line numbering and syntax highlighting
* Crimson Editor and its successor Emerald 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. GNU GPL licenced.
* JOVE — Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs
* JuffEd — lightweight text editor written on Qt4
* Kate — text editor for the KDE desktop
* Kedit — KDE editor roughly similar in sophistication to Windows Notepad, but with a spellchecker.
* Kile — User friendly TeX/LaTeX editor
* KWrite — a KDE editor more sophisticated than KEdit.
* Leafpad
* MadEdit — a cross-platform text and hex editor
* medit
* MicroEMACS
* NEdit — "Nirvana Editor"
* Notepad++ — a tabbed text editor
* Notepad2
* PPC edit — text editor for Pocket PC
* Programmer's Notepad
* RText
* Sam
* SciTE
* Smultron — a Mac OS X text editor
* SourceEdit — a Windows cross-platform (ftp) editor
* TEA - multifunctional text editor
* TeXnicCenter
* TextForge - a GPL Cocoa Mac OS X editor
* TextRoom - a GPL fullscreen text editor for Qt.
* The Hessling Editor
* UniRed
* X11 Xedit
* Yudit

Freeware

* Arachnophilia
* BBEdit Lite
* BDV Notepad
* Bred
* ConTEXT
* Eddie — A text editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and Mac OS X.
* EDXOR
* EditEx
* EditPad Lite
* EmEditor Free
* Editor²
* GridinSoft Notepad Lite
* HAPedit
* HiEditor
* Komodo Edit
* LEd — LaTeX Editor
* LopeEdit Lite
* MAX's HTML Beauty++ 2004
* Mi — A Japanese text editor, with an English version
* Metapad
* NotesHolder Lite
* Notepad+
* NoteTab Light
* q10 — Full screen text editor (Windows)
* Programmer's File Editor (PFE)
* PSPad editor
* Rainbow Editor (free for students)
* RJ TextEd - Unicode source and text editor
* roPEdit
* RPad32
* subpad
* Syn Text Editor (Windows)
* SuperEdi
* TED Notepad
* TeXShop — TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer
* TextWrangler
* TotalEdit
* Win32Pad
* WhizNote

Personal license (free for individuals)

* HTML Kit

Commercial

* Alphatk
* BBEdit
* Boxer
* CygnusEd (CED)
* CodeWright
* CopyWrite
* CRiSP Editor
* Crystal REVS for C/C++
* E Collaborative Text Editor
* Editeur
* EditPad Pro
* EditPlus
* EmEditor
* Epsilon
* GhostClip
* GoldED (text editor of Cubic IDE)
* GWD Text Editor
* Kedit text editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM Xedit
* LopeEdit Pro
* Marile Notepad
* MED
* Multi-Edit
* Notepad
* NoteTab
* PolyEdit
* Rainbow Editor
* skEdit (formerly called skHTML)
* SlickEdit
* Source Insight
* SubEthaEdit (formerly called Hydra)
* TaterEdit (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X)
* Tex-Edit Plus
* TextMate
* TextPad and Wildedit
* TopStyle
* TotalEdit Pro
* Twistpad
* The SemWare Editor (TSE) (formerly called QEdit)
* UltraEdit
* Ulysses
* UNA
* VEDIT
* WebDesign
* WinEdt
* Zeus IDE

Text user interface

System default

* 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 (default under Unix — unless replaced by a vi-clone) — One of the earliest screen-based editors, available in Unix, and part of the POSIX standard. Vi is based on ex.
* ee (Easy Edit) — a simple text editor for FreeBSD.
* 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.
* 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.
* E was the text editor in PC-DOS 7, PC-DOS 2000, and OS/2
* edlin was the default editor on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT.

Others

* 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.
* Elvis
* JED
* JOE — A modern screen-based editor with a sort of enhanced-WordStar style to the interface, but can also emulate Pico.
* LE
* Nano — An open source clone of Pico.
* Pico
* SETEDIT — a clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs
* vile — A vi work-alike which retains the vi command-set while adding aspects of the Emacs editing paradigm: multiple windows and buffers, infinite undo, colorization, scriptable expansion capabilities, etc.
* mcedit — Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems.
* ne - a minimal, modern replacement for vi.

No User Interface (Editor Library, Toolkit)

* Scintilla (Editing Component) is used as the core of several text editors.
* Text Processing Utility (TPU) — Language and Runtime used to implement the Language-Sensitive Editor and Extensible Versatile Editor.
* SynEdit is open source code editing component compatible with both Delphi and Kylix

Collaborative

ASCII art

Editors and viewers 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).
* JavE
* PabloDraw — ANSI/ASCII editor allowing multiple users to edit via TCP/IP network connections.
* Tetradraw — an ANSI art editor for *nix operating systems with mult-user editing support.
* TheDraw — ANSI/ASCII text editor for MS DOS and PCBoard file format support
* TundraDraw — a cross-platform ANSI and ASCII editor
* AsciiO - cross-platform ASCII diagram creation

ASCII Font Editors

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

Historical

Visual and full-screen editors

* aee — "advanced easy editor" for Unix. Still available in most package managers, but seldom used.
* Brief — A very popular programmer's editor for DOS.
* Edit.app — The default text editor for NEXTSTEP systems.
* 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.
* LEXX — editor for the Oxford English Dictionary, possibly the first to use live parsing and colour syntax highlighting (runs on VM/CMS); derivatives known as LPEX (run on Windows, Linux, Java JVM, OS/2, AIX, "etc.")
* 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.
* SEDT — A multiplatform EDT work-alike
* Source Entry Utility or SEU — A full screen editor that ran on the IBM System/38 and still runs on the IBM AS/400 as a legacy. (Currently being phased out in favor of the WebSphere Development Studio Client editor that runs on the Eclipse platform.)
* 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.
* NED (text editor) — The Rand fullscreen text editor, also known as "re". A white-space editor, allowing arbitrary cursor movement past end-of-line or the last character of the file. Small amount of integration with the MH mail system.

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) was a TECO-like editor including a programming language for the GEC 4000 series computers
* 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

See also

* Comparison of text editors
* List of word processors
* Editor war