Hello, @mm-tsuchi, @terry-r and All,

@mm-tsuchi, The behavior, that you’ve found out, seems definitively a bug , I’m afraid :-‘’

Let’s test with the beginning of the change.log file, copied in a new tab :

Notepad++ v8.8.7 new features & bug-fixes: 1. Sign Notepad++ binaries with GlobalSign certificat to fix false-positive alerts. 2. Fix Monitoring in one view affects selections and position in second view. 3. Fix Shortcut Mapper memory leak issue. 4. Enhance Perl FunctionList for class. 5. Fix pressing Alt or Tab causes controls redrawing problem in UDL dialog. Notepad++ v8.8.6 new features & bug-fixes: 1. Add capacity of pasting multiline into Find/Replace fields. 2. Improve UAC in Notepad++ for seamless elevated operations. 3. Fix Pin Tab operation being too long with many opened documents. 4. Add 2 new full-readonly modes via command line argument (-fullReadOnly & -fullReadOnlySavingForbidden). 5. Add apply/remove read-only for all documents commands. 6. Column Editor enhancement: GUI input fields now support radix to match the output format. 7. Add Window dialog "File Modified Time" sorting capacity. 8. Fix NPPN_CMDLINEPLUGINMSG not working issue & define the pluginMessage usage protocol. 9. Fix pasting from column mode to multi-selection issue due to different EOL. 10. Add NPPM_GETNPPSETTINGSDIRPATH message to get Notepad++ settings directory path. 11. Enhance SQL function list parser. 12. Fix C# function list not working with comments. 13. Add function list ability for CSS. 14. Allow user to customize max selected chars to auto-fill "Find what" field. 15. Restore undo/redo behaviour in Find/Replace fields after Copy/Paste or Ctrl-F. 16. Fix text corruption issue caused by selection within multibyte characters. 17. Fix DOCTYPE styling in xml and html. 18. Fix double clicking on edit zone border creates a new tab issue. 19. Update cURL in WinGUp (Notepad++ updater) for fixing security issue CVE-2025-5399.

And let’s start with a fresh portable v8.8.7 release of N++. After launching Notepad++.exe for the first time, if you move to the Preferences... > Searching panel, you should see this snapshot :

ba0aed16-e512-4b4d-bf11-8d3cbde6d7b5-Capture d'écran 2025-11-18 103552.png

So, you can verify that, by default, the two options Fill Find Field with Selected Text and Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected are checked

In this configuration, no problem at all regarding the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands which work as expected !

Now, as soon as you unchecked the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, note that it also unchecks, automatically the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected option and the Max characters to Auto-Fill Find Field from Selection option, as well !

With that new configuration :

Double-clic on the first Add word of the text

Open the Find dialog ( Ctrl + F )

=> The Find what zone should be empty ( logical, because of the settings ! )

Note that the Wrap around option is checked by default and the search mode is set to normal

Type the word Add in the Find what zone

Click once on the Find next button to jump to the next occurrence of the Add word

Close the Find what zone ( Esc )

You can check that the F3 / Shift + F3 shortcuts ( Normal search ) or the Ctrl + Alt + F3 / Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F3 shortcuts ( Volatile search ) work as expected

However, the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands do nothing. This is also logical because of the new settings !

Now, just put the caret within any Add word. if you hit the F3 key, it does find the next Add word ! Don’t be mistaken : it found the Add word just because the Find what zone still contains the Add word as the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected is uncheked

To be convinced, simply put your caret within an other word Fix : hitting the F3 key still search the next occurrence of the Add word and not the Fix word !

Now, double-click on any Fix word. The only possibility to search this new word is to use the Alt + Ctrl + F3 or Alt + Ctrl + Shift + F3 shortcuts. However, if you open the Find dialog, as this kind of search is volatile, the Find what zone will still contains the Add word !

So, IMO, how to fix this issue :

Forbid the Select And Find ... options when the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, in settings, is unchecked. This seems logical as current selected text never fills the Find what zone !

But, allow the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected setting to be checked, independently of the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option. So, putting caret within any word, would still select this word and placed it in the Find what zone of the Find dialog for search !

Best Regards,

guy038

@me

I printed out a cookie recipe in NP++ and LO Writer

Try to be more explicit. I actually use LibreOffice and, until @PeterJones explicitly stated it in his response, I had no idea what you were talking about when you said “LO”.

@mpheath ,

Thanks again for you reply! I plan to test your BufferRestore script after my next “break” in my current project(s). After looking closer at your post and web page, this looks to be a good option for me to use until NP++ has a built in tool…

I do own a rack of servers and plan to spin up a couple extra VMs once I release my own platform/environment for my apps (within the next couple months). The challenge with one of the (main) current platforms which I’m using is, while I pay annually to be a developer for them, their licensing does not allow me to run on more than 1 PC at a time, so it requires me to log out/in each time I switch between PCs or VMs. I can’t maintain the variable “state” if forced to log out.

There are many additional issues with Windows Rebooting… When the current test environments get “killed”, all the opened files are now locked and all the variables are flushed. So it requires unlocking the files, and recreating the previous workflow to recreate the variable “state”. Using a log file doesn’t work well in this environment, because it typically goes back beyond the last save… and could only be applied if the saved file was in the exact state as when the log file was started… not sure if that makes sense?

@JuergenBelle ,

Further to what @h-jangra said, since N++ v8.8.6, you can just paste your multi-line text into the Replace, and use the Search @h-jangra suggested, and you don’t need the plugin at all…

If your replacement has parentheses () or dollar signs $, it might not work as you expect, so you might have to escape them, as described in the user manual (https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/searching/#substitutions)