Notepad/WordPad (Windows XP Pro)

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I keep a log book entry in a txt file. Is there a way to have NotePad or WordPad go to the bottom of the file each time I open it instead of the standard default of it going to the top? It is a long list with entries from over 3 years and, since it is just a flat text file, I know of no way to do a sort order to reverse the order of entry. Any ideas?

Thanks,

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Both Notepad and WordPad are relatively simple programs; there is no way to automate them the way you can automate Word.
But a simple Ctrl+End will take you to the end of the file (this keyboard shortcut works in most Windows programs)

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Hans,
Thanks, great tip – works just fine.

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I have hung on to an ancient DOS sort program called QSORT which I usually use, several times a day, to sort stuff in vertical columns (not in the Excel sense, of course). This would work fine provided you have your text file with the fields in fixed positions, as in

Bloggs          Fred
Bloggs          Joe
Chandler        Raymond
Potter          Harry
etc

Let me know if it’s of any interest. I also use the IBM PC-DOS editor called E, as I have done for the last twelve years or so. This also has a sort, but the file size tends to be limited to around 300 KB or so.

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JohnGray,
Thank you for your kind offer, but it is mostly paragraphs of text and code snippets, no columnar order.

BTW, I still use a DOS program called QPRINT, I got it about 10 or so years ago with a Borland product, if I remember correctly. It might be a utility brethren to your QSORT.

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You might want to take a look at a product called TextPad, which I use a lot and which has much nicer features than either NotePad or WordPad but creates regular txt files. For one thing, you can create and save a workspace in TextPad, which allows you to open all the files in that “workspace” automatically. It also has some really nifty search features you can use across the files in a folder.

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Charlotte,

Thank you for the tip, I have been using TextPad for a while now and like it a lot, but have not set my default file association for txt files to ‘open with TextPad’. Actually, I don’t use Windows NotePad either, I substituted it with EditPad from JGSoft but wanted to ask the question here in the Windows forum to see if there was a generic solution that might work in other editors as well. As Hans suggested, using CTRL-END, while not automated, is so easy and simple, I should be ashamed for not thinking to try it, as I do use it often in Word.

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As far as I know, Notepad and Wordpad don’t know how to save the cursor position. I’m afraid the only alternative to scrolling is to use the shortcut Ctrl+End as soon as you open the file.
Or, if you think it’s worthwhile, there are a lot of freeware / shareware text editors with better brains on offer.

Regards, Oana

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As long as you don’t mind a date and time stamp, Notepad does what you want. One useful function it has had for as long as I can recall.

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