The following is a list of notable text editors.
Graphical and text user interface The editors below can be used with either a graphical user interface or a text-based user interface.
Name Description License Elvis A vi/ex clone with additional commands and features. Extensible Versatile Editor (EVE) Default under OpenVMS. GNU EmacsCameron, D., Rosenblatt, B., Raymond, E., & Raymond, E. S. (1996). Learning GNU Emacs. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".Glickstein, B. (1997). Writing GNU Emacs Extensions: Editor Customizations and Creations with Lisp. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".Halme, H., & Heinänen, J. (1988). GNU Emacs as a dynamically extensible programming environment. Software: Practice and Experience, 18(10), 999-1009.Schoonover, M. A., & Schoonover, S. (1991). GNU Emacs: UNIX text editing and programming. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.Cameron, D., Elliott, J., Loy, M., Raymond, E. S., & Rosenblatt, B. (2005). Learning GNU Emacs. " O'Reilly Media, Inc."./XEmacsStallman, R., & Goyal, R. (1994). Getting Started With XEmacs. One of a complete set of manuals for XEmacs, all available at .Ayers, L. (1997). A Comparison of Xemacs and GNU emacs. Linux Journal, 1997, 4. 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. Textadept A modular, cross-platform editor written in C and Lua, using Scintilla. 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. vimRobbins, A., Hannah, E., & Lamb, L. (2008). Learning the vi and Vim Editors. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".Robbins, A. (2011). Vi and Vim Editors Pocket Reference. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".Schulz, K. (2007). Hacking Vim: a cookbook to get the most out of the latest Vim editor. Packt Publishing Ltd.Neil, D. (2015). Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought. Pragmatic Bookshelf. A clone based on the ideas of the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface.
Graphical user interface
Name Description License Acme A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike. Alphatk Apache OpenOffice Writer Word processor and text editor of the Apache OpenOffice Suite, based on StarOffice's suite. ArachnophiliaA source code editor which is successor to another HTML editor, WebThing. Atom A modular, general-purpose editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of Chromium and Node.js. The project was retired in late 2022 with the repo archived on December 15, 2022. BBEditA proprietary text editor originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6 Bluefish A source code editor with web development features. Brackets A modular, web-oriented editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of the Chromium Embedded Framework. CodeWrightAn editing system or source code editor which can be configured to work with other integrated development environment (IDE) systems. Crimson EditorA text editor which is typically used as a source code editor and HTML editor. CygnusEd (CED) E Text Editor Default under IBM OS/2 versions 2-4. Eddie An editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and macOS. EmEditorextensible commercial text editor which supports Unicode, syntax highlighting and vertical selection editing, editing of large files (up to 248 GB or 2.1 billion lines) EpsilonA programmer's text editor modelled after Emacs. FeatherPad A lightweight editor based on Qt. Geany A fast and lightweight editor – IDE, uses GTK+. gedit Former default under GNOME until GNOME 42. GNOME Text Editor Default under GNOME from GNOME 42 onwards GoldED (text editor of Cubic IDE) HxD An editor for huge files, working with both binary data and texts. iA Writer A multi-platform Markdown text editor with writing focused feature set jEdit A free cross-platform programmer's editor written in Java, GPL licensed. JOVE Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs Kate A basic text editor for the KDE desktop. Kedit An editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM XEDIT. Kile A user friendly TeX/LaTeX editor. Komodo Edit KWrite A default editor on KDE. Lapis An experimental text editor allowing multiple simultaneous edits of text in a multiple selection from a few examples provided by the user. Leafpad Default under LXDE."Leafpad" Leo A text editor that features outlines with clones as its central tool of organization and navigation. LibreOffice Writer Word processor and text editor of the LibreOffice Suite, based on StarOffice's suite. Light Table A text editor and IDE with real-time, inline expression evaluation. Intended mainly for dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and JavaScript, and for web development. mcedit A text editor provided with Midnight Commander. Metapad Windows Notepad replacement, GPL licensed. MicroEMACS JASSPA MicroEMACS Mousepad The default under Xfce. Multi-Edit NEdit – "Nirvana Editor" Notepad Default under Microsoft Windows. Notepad++ A tabbed text editor. Pe A text editor for BeOS. pluma The default text editor of the MATE desktop environment for Linux. PolyEdit Proprietary word processor and text editor. Programmer's File Editor (PFE) PSPad An editor for Microsoft Windows with various programming environments. RJ TextEd Sam SciTE Cross-platform, multi-user, multi-codepage, multi-language syntax highlighting, area selector, RE find/replace, and very customisable, allowing different font configurations for each syntactic group, user-defined menus and abbreviation expansion. SimpleText Default under Classic Mac OS from version 7.5.https://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/0307163ASYS75UPG.pdf SlickEdit Smultron A macOS text editor. SubEthaEdit(formerly named Hydra) Sublime Text TeachText Default under Classic Mac OS versions prior to 7.5. TED Notepad Tex-Edit Plus TextPad TeXnicCenter TeXShop TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer.Mittelbach, F., Goossens, M., Braams, J., Carlisle, D., & Rowley, C. (2004). The LATEX companion. Addison-Wesley Professional.Lamport, L. (1994). LATEX: a document preparation system: user's guide and reference manual. Addison-wesley.Hoenig, A. (1998). TeX unbound: LaTeX & TeX strategies for fonts, graphics, & more. Oxford University Press, USA.Syropoulos, A., Tsolomitis, A., & Sofroniou, N. (2007). Digital typography using LATEX. Springer Science & Business Media. TextEdit Default under macOS, NeXTSTEP, and GNUstep. TextMate TextWrangler Mac-only editor by Bare Bones Software, sunsetted. Final version released 09/20/2016, replaced by free tier of BBEdit. The Hessling Editor The SemWare Editor (TSE)(formerly named QEdit). UltraEdit Text and source code editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, FTP, etc., handles multi-gigabyte files. Ulysses VEDIT Visual Studio CodeDel Sole, A. (2018). Visual Studio Code Distilled: Evolved Code Editing for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Apress. An extensible code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running and version control. WinEdt X11 Xedit XEDIT Default under VM/CMS. Yudit Xed Default under Linux Mint, forked from Pluma. Zed Started by former Atom developer Nathan Sobo. Positioned as the "spiritual successor" to Atom.
Text user interface
System default
Name Description License E is the text editor in PC DOS 6, PC DOS 7 and PC DOS 2000. ed The default line editor on Unix since its birth. Either ed or a compatible editor is available on all systems labeled as Unix (not by default on every one). ED The default editor on CP/M, MP/M, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86. EDIT The default on MS-DOS 5.0 and higher and is included with all 32-bit versions of Windows that do not rely on a separate copy of DOS. Up to including MS-DOS 6.22, it only supported files up to 64 KB. EDIT The text editor in Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher. Supports large files for as long as swap space is available. Version 7 and higher optionally supports a pseudo-graphics user interface named NewUI. EDIX The text editor in Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM, Concurrent PC DOS, Concurrent DOS 386, FlexOS 286, FlexOS 386, 4680 OS, 4690 OS, S5-DOS/MT. EDITOR The text editor in DR DOS 3.31 through DR DOS 6.0, and the predecessor of EDIT. EDLIN A command-line based line editor introduced with 86-DOS, and the default on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT. 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. viLamb, L., Robbins, A., & Robbins, A. (1998). Learning the vi Editor. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.". The default for Unix systems and must be included in all POSIX compliant systems – One of the earliest screen-based editors, it is based on ex.
Others Name Description License ECCE ECCE (The Edinburgh Compatible Context Editor) is a text editor designed by Dr Hamish Dewar at Edinburgh University. Emacs A screen-based editor with an embedded computer language, Emacs Lisp. Early versions were implemented in TECO, see below. JED Multi-mode, multi-window editor with drop-down menus, folding, ctags support, undo, UTF-8, key-macros, autosave, etc. Multi-emulation; default is emacs. Programmable in S-Lang. 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. mg Small and light, uses GNU/Emacs keybindings. Installed by default on OpenBSD. MinEd Text editor with user-friendly interface, mouse and menu control, and extensive Unicode and CJK support; for Unix/Linux and Windows/DOS. GNU nano A clone of Pico GPL licensed. ne A minimal, modern replacement for vi. Pico SETEDIT A clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs. The SemWare Editor (TSE for DOS)(formerly called QEdit)
vi-like The following text editors provide functionality similar to vi. They are ordered to some extent by when initially developed and released.
Name Description License ex Originally developed as an extended version of ed, eventually, it was enhanced to support full-screen editing via a visual mode which is what today we call vi. In other words, vi is a mode of ex. Stevie For the Atari ST, ST editor for vi enthusiasts is the starting point for vim and xvi Elvis The first vi clone and the default vi in Minix. vile Derived from an early version of Microemacs in an attempt to bring the Emacs multi-window/multi-buffer editing paradigm to vi users. First published 1991 with infinite undo, UTF-8 compatibility, multi-window/multi-buffer operation, a macro expansion language, syntax highlighting, file read and write hooks, and more. vim An extended version of the vi editor, with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program source code. Kakoune An editor inspired by vi that makes use of multi cursor workflows and modal editing. Neovim A fork of vim with added Lua scripting and native LSP integration. BusyBoxWells, N. (2000). BusyBox: A swiss army knife for linux. Linux Journal, 2000(78es), 10. In addition to many other utilities, includes a vi clone except for reduced functionality to minimize size. nvi A new implementation and currently the standard vi in BSD distributions.
Command line interface The following entries are utilities that provide no interactive user interface, only a command-line interface. They are arguably not text editors.
Name Description License sed A stream editor based on the scripting features in ed. A utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language.
Library The following entires are packages that support editing text, not text editors per se.