I agree this is the perfect solution I was looking for... a lean and fast portable replacement for Notepad but with features that provide improved usability and usefulness. This one is just right. Not too many features, not bloated, works for what I need it to do.

I keep akelpad, AM-notebook, and mempad all on my usb key for notestuff. Have been using them for about 3 months now.
I use mempad about 90% of the time now. Check it out as well.

It even doesn't have all the features of windows native notepad.

I better find something with native notepad features + other features.

@tun.

What features are missing?
The only one I can see is the time and date function.

There are plugins available for this too on the website.
It does have many extras

I like the feature of a special character that I use many times, but when I open the document again, all special character become the "?" symbol. How can I fix this?

I use this program extensively and enjoy it. I like how it has a preview window when opening a file. Multiple files with tabs. Can't beat it. Small too.

this would be the best notepad replacement if there was a better syntax highlighting plugin (such as the ability to properly display html, php commenting)!

other than that, it is the smallest, most powerful text editor available.

system: win xp, sp2, support for asian language installed:
problems with showing chinese or japanese letters. only a mess. i've changed the codepages and restarted the prog. nothing helped.
any idea?

a rather interesting feature is "Support of any code page installed in the system".
comes in handy when you need to do some quick conversions on "garbled" text files ;-)

Smallest exe size, very fast, tons of features, my default text editor. two thumbs up

My default text editor too.
No problems with Asian languages.

Two opposable thumbs up here too. Good balance of speed+clutter vs. features. I use another editor for developing code, but this is my default plain-text editor.

this is my default text editor as well. The tab really manage clutter on task bar.

An excellent and well configurable text editor. Some of the plugins are very useful extensions, such as Toolbar, ContextMenu, Lineboard, Lines, Autocomplete and others. See the Akelpad forums for tips and trics, some too advanced for me.
I miss one feature which would make it the perfect editor for me: spell checker, for instance a plugin for ASpell (Notepad++ has one).

Just a small nit ... Registry entries are created on first run of the program, -before- you have a chance to change the options. You have to manually delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Akelsoft key. After the options are set as described here, the key won't be recreated.

This program is NOT Stealth at all. A lot of new registry values every time i start it on my winXP system even with "Save settings" to "INI File" option set :(

Syntax highlighting is a dealbreaker for me. Moving on...

@meter wrote:
Two opposable thumbs up here too. Good balance of speed+clutter vs. features. I use another editor for developing code, but this is my default plain-text editor.

Same for me.
It's fascinating how fast this thing loads :)

To everyone:

Syntax highlighting is vastly improved! Although they could tweak the colors and font styles, it's much better.

Try the new version and and the new highlight plugin.

I can't paste Thai Text from Notepad to graphic applications before. Now, I can do it. I think Akelpad good more Notepad. It's lite and compatible with Saru Revowel 2 to edit Thai Language Text to paste to Adobe Applications.

Thx. to Shengalts and Alexey

I love this one. Very basic and fast, great for my note taking activities. I downloaded the classic english version: only 18KB.

One of the very, very best replacements for notepad. Been using it for many years (hard to keep up with its very frequent updating!). Writing this to point Akelpad can do column selection. Utter gem of a program. Tiny size, fully portable, lightly fast search and replace, elegant interface, many extras via plugins. Did I mention Akelpad does column selection (alt+leftclick, same as Word)?

FYI: tabs don't show up unless you enable options|window mode|multi window(MDI). eluded me for awhile.

Looks like Akelpad has code folding now! Going to check it out.

Akel Pad is outstanding -- my default text editor. Multi-file capable, yet efficiently small.

Does anyone overlap akelpad ? It's always on top ! no frame can hide it !

Giorgio Bordignon: uncheck "Menu\View\Always on top"

i compare to crimson editor, my main TE (never portable or easily portablized, AFAIK).
a little confusing.
overall, i like AP for the syntax formatting, but the older version seemed less "beta".
prev version of ap (4.2?) would recall last open docs when starting up. this current 4.4.8 won't recall, and none of the settings hint at dis/enabling last-open recollection.
save or saveall command [clicking floppy button] causes scroll position to jump. I think position jumps less when you are near bottom of file. after a saveall, button doesn't switch to grey status as the save button does.
the "show invisible chars" tab char is the euro double arrowhead "quote" char. it doesn't occupy enough horizontal blankspace. Tab char seems almost narrower than the blankspace char. And seems settings cannot separately disable tab char.
case change should be context menu, imo.

Syntax/Coder
i can't find on AP forums or elsewhere how to edit or create syntax file (*.coder file). I see some clues in reading simple parts of a coder file, but i can't yet "inscrute" the critical portions that have strings of commas and double quotes.
Akelupdater for Plugins
wish there was way to save newest download plugins when using akelupdater. this would allow one d/l and manually 'sync' ap installs on other pcs. btw err pop says akelupdater.exe must run from main akelpad.exe install folder.
plugin settings dialog tedious in not showing which plugins will run constantly, except by err response for plugs that will not. must restart ap for plug seetings to "take".

would like regex find&replace (cedt's is a bit flaky, but useful)
(cedt.exe = crimson editor, btw)

Gets frozen too often for tabs and plugins combo :(
Although very nice editor for single window mode.

Yeah, I've noticed that the recent versions of AkelPad occasionally freeze up, which isn't great! :(

Any understandable instructions for installing the spell check (portable!)?

More or less (contributions jmv and yrrah):

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.freeware/browse_thread/thread/d43f9b26ddb2c5f5

There is a lot of room for improvements though.

I suppose every user of this great text editor already know about that, but it is noteworthy that Akelpad supports 19 languages apart from english. Just download the installer and extract your preferred one to AkelFiles>Langs folder.

Tried AkelPad, very small and with plugin make it become the best Notepad software ever!

Problem is it is not save Recent Files to ini file or something like, it save Recent Files to registry, hope developer will add a option to save recent files on ini file in the future, this will make AkelPad perfect!

AkelPad will stubbornly create umpteens "HKCU\Software\Akelsoft\AkelPad\Options"
registry entries on 1st run, whether or not the "Save settings to INI file" option is initially selected.

JohnTHaller and Ruby provided great tips to circumvent this annoying "feature" on 1st run:

(Pre-requisite: Make sure your editor supports file saving in UNICODE format.)

1. Unzip AkelPad-4.8.5-bin-eng.zip in directory of choice.
2. Create an "akelpad.ini" file with the following four lines
[Options]
SaveSettings=2
RecentFiles=0
SearchStrings=0
3. Save akelpad.ini as a UNICODE strings file
4. Launch AkelPad.exe
5. Run happily ever after.

See AkelPad discussion by Midas et al in
http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=66885

__philippe

Revised main entry "How to extract" instructions to reflect above findings.

__philippe

Akelpad v 4.8.6 released.

Akelpad v4.9.4 released 03-JUN-2015 :
http://akelpad.sourceforge.net/en/download.php

Scores of plugins updated likewise :
http://akelpad.sourceforge.net/en/plugins.php

@__philippe tx updated