Preferences

You can configure many aspects of Notepad++ using the Preferences dialog. The dialog consists of multiple tab which contain options that are relevant to some aspect of Notepad++ (for instance, the interface or backup options).


Global

The global settings control the look of the main interface. You can control the Tab Bar, the Tool Bar, the Status Bar and the menu from here.
Tool bar:
Hide - Check the hide checkbox to completely hide the tool bar.
The following choices show immediate results, but sometimes a restart is requiredto load the correct icons:

Menu bar:
Hide - If you check this option, the menu bar will automatically hide. To (temporarily) show the menu bar, press the Alt key or the F10 key to give the menu focus. Selecting an option, pressing escape or giving another window the focus will hide the menu again.

Status bar:
Show status bar - Check the option to show the status bar.

Tab bar:
Hide - Checking this option will hide the tab bar. You can still open multiple documents but you have to switch using shortcuts rather that using the tab bar.
Multi-Line - Checking this option will cause the tab bar to draw multiple rows of documents if they cannot all be displayed in a single row. Otherwise a scroll button will appear. Note that the active document will always be on the bottom row.
Vertical - Checking this option will rotate the tab bar 90� counterclockwise and place it at the left side of the screen.
Reduce - If checked the tab bar will use the default font and icon size. Unchecking will cause it to use a larger font and larger icons.
Lock - Checking this will disable the ability to sort documents by dragging the tabs around.
Draw the inactive tabs - If checked, inactive tabs will be drawn using a custom background color (see Settings, Styler Configurator).
Draw the orange top bar - Checking this will draw a (by default) orange line on top of active tabs (see Settings, Styler Configurator).
Enable close button on each tab - Checking this will add a close button on each tab. Clicking it will close that tab.
Double click to close document - If checked, doubleclicking on a tab will close it.

Edit Components

These settings affect the behaviour and look of Scintilla, the edit component of Notepad++.
Caret settings:
Width - Set the width in pixels of the caret, or change it into a block which is the size if the current character (if printable, otherwise the size of the space character).
Blink rate - Change from fast (F) to slow (S). Moving all the way to slow will stop the blinking.
You can change the caret color with the Styler Configurator.

Tab settings:
Tab size - Size in space characters of a tab character in the document.
Replace by space - Checking this will cause any tabs added to be in the form of spaces, up to the amount as determined by the Tab size setting.

The following options are changed per view (See Multi View). Select the view to adjust form the combo box.

Folder margin style:
The style of the icons that indicate folding (See Folding). Select from 4 types.

Vertical Edge Setting:
Show vertical edge - Checking this will draw a vertical edge throughout the document.
Mode :
You can change the color with the Styler Configurator.

Number of columns: The distance in columns (as determined by the size of the space character) at which the edge will be drawn.

Display line number margin - If checked, line numbers will be drawn.You can change the color with the Styler Configurator.
Display bookmark margin - If checked, the bookmark margin will be drawn.
Active current line highlight - If checked, the line at which the caret is present will be drawn with a special background color. You can change the color with the Styler Configurator.

New Document/Open Save directory

These options change the way new documents are created and what the default Open/Save directories will be.

New document:
Encoding:
Allows to choose what encoding to use (see Encoding).
Format:
Allows to choose what end-of-line format to use (see Newline Format).
Default language: Allows to select the default language of a new document. User defined languages and external languages cannot be selected.

File Open/Save Directory:
(Default directory is not the same as the Current Directory (Working Directory) Notepad++ uses, do not make assumptions about Notepad++ Current Directory). The File Open/Save Directory, or Default Directory, controls what directory Notepad++ looks in when opening or saving files.

File Association

You can associate files with Notepad++ so opening those files will start Notepad++. Select a type of file, then select the desired extension and press the left arrow to associate the file. To add a custom type of file, select customize, enter the extension and press the -> button. To remove the association, select the extension to dissociate and press the arrow next to the garbage can.

Language Menu

You can select the language that are available from the Language menu. In the Available Items list are the languages that are currently visible. To hide a language form the menu, select it and press the -> button to put it in the Disabled Items list. Add the language again by selecting it from the  Disabled Item list and pressing the <- button.

Print - Colour and Margin

Use these settings to adjust the layout and colors used when printing a document.
Print line number - If selected, linenumbers will be printed aswell.
Colour Option:

Print - Header and Footer

Use these settings to control special text to appear at the documents edges. This can be any regular string or an variable that will change depending on the printed document.

Variable: Variable to add to the current header/footer. There are a few default variables listed, but you can use the variables used by the Run dialog (see Commands) as well. The syntax is the same.
Add: Add the selected variable. It will automatically be escaped.

Header:
Control the header text. If any header text is present, it will be separated from the document with a line.
Use the edit controls to adjust the text added to the header. You can add text in the left aligned, right aligned and centered sections.
The controls below control the font used by the header.

Footer:
Control the footer text. See Header for more information.

Backup/Auto-Completion

Backup:
Control backup behaviour. You can instruct Notepad++ to automatically make a backup of every file if you save any modifications.
User custom backup directory - If checked, a custom backup directory is used instead of saving to the same directory the file resides in. If the path is invalid the directory the file resides in will be used.

Auto-completion:
See Auto-Completion on what Auto Completion is.
Enable Auto-completion on each input - If checked, Notepad++ will try to autocomplete the current word being typed based on how much is already written.
From #th characters: Enter amount of characters needed before Notepad++ tries to auto-complete the current words. Allowed values range from 1 to 9.
Function parameters hint on input - If checked, when a character is added that marks the start of a list of arguments of the currently typed function, the function parameters calltip will be shown.

MISC

These settings control other aspects of Notepad++.

History File Setting:
Max number of history file # - Any number from 0 up to 30. Controls the amount of files that are saved in the history.
Don't check at launch time - If checked, Notepad++ will not verify the validity of the files in the history. If unchecked, Notepad++ will check the existence of each file. Recommended to be turned on in case of networked files.

Document switcher:
(See Document Switcher)
Enable - Enable the document switcher.
Enable MRU behavior - Enables the MRU style sort of files in the document switcher.

Clickable link settings:
Enable - If enabled, web addresses (starting with http://) will be clickable, opening that address in your browser (if any browser is installed and registered). By default it is drawn with an underline (see below).
Don't draw underline - If enabled, the address will be drawn without an underline.

File Status Auto-detection:
Automatically checks the status of each opened file when Notepad++ is activated from the background.
Enable - Check to enable status detection.
Update silently - If a change to a file is detected (modified contents), Notepad++ will reload the file without asking.
Scroll to the last line after update - If checked, when a file is reloaded after an external modification is detected, it will be scrolled to the last line (useful for tailing log files).

Highlight matching tags:
Tag highlighting is used for HTML/XML languages. When the cursor is located inside or at a tag, corresponding tag entries will be colorized. Change the colors using the Styler Configurator.
Enable - Check to enable tag highlighting.
Highlight tag attributes - If checked, the attributes of a tag will be colorized as well.
Highlight php/asp zone - If checked, tags inside a php/asp zone will be matched as well.

Auto-indent - If checked, adding a new line will automatically indent that line if any line with text before it has indentation as well. The indentation will then be matched.
Minimize to sys tray - If checked, minimizing Notepad++ will cause it to be hidden from the taskbar and an icon to be added to the system tray (notification area). Clicking the icon will bring Notepad++ back to the foreground.
Smart highlighting - If checked, any word that matches the currently selected word in the screen will be highlighted. You can control the color using the Styler Configurator.
Show only filename in titlebar - If checked, instead of the full path to the active file only the filename will be displayed.
Remember the current session for next launch - If checked, the all the files opened in Notepad++ will be opened again if Notepad++ is closed.
Session file ext: If an extension is entered here, Notepad++ will try to open these files as session files instead of regular files. This allows you to simply provide a session file via the command line or any other method of opening a file to load a session into Notepad++.