A tech support analyst was troubleshooting a printer macro script that assigned the output trays based upon the paper type selected in the OpenDocument. He was getting increasingly frustrated because he didn’t have a program that could properly display and format the Visual Basic macro code on his screen. The Visual Studio program was several thousand dollars and only reserved for the web development team and senior programmers. The problem was not large enough to engage any senior resources, so the technician looked for an Open Source program that would help him view and edit the macro code. To his surprise, the search didn’t take very long, he found Notepad++ and downloaded it right away. The Open Source development page commented that Notepad++ fully supported all types of Microsoft code, including editing and properly formatting Visual Basic macro code.

Notepad++ was setup quickly and it immediately opened and recognized the Visual Basic macro file. The program was neatly organized and helped arrange the code into separate lines, thanks to the handy line numbering. The technician also really liked the fact that he could open multiple versions of the Visual Basic macro code thanks to the Notepad++ tabbed toolbar function. He could easily compare code and text based on line numbers and switch between versions just by clicking on the program’s easy to use tabs. He was able to find the problem with the code using the comprehensive search function built right into Notepad++. Once he found the bad code, he fixed it and got the macro recompiled quickly. Since Notepad++ is a graphical Windows program he could easily cut and paste the code from the main window and bring it back to his Microsoft Word application. These are things that the traditional Windows Notepad just was not capable of doing; in fact Windows Notepad doesn’t support Visual Basic code editing by design. Microsoft wants users to spend big bucks on their expensive tools. Thanks to Notepad++ that is unnecessary.