File types notepad++ uses?

[Johnathon Ward]

what are all the file types that notepad++ uses?

[Ekopalypse]

@johnathon-ward

afaik, none at first - only the ones you define.

[PeterJones]

@johnathon-ward ,

If you mean, “what are all the file types that Notepad++ is automatically associated with when I install Notepad++”, @Ekopalypse’s answer is simplest. And you can can use Settings > Preferences > File Association in Administrator Mode to affect those (or any other appropriate method of file association for your version of Windows, like direct registry editing or Right Click > Open With).

If you mean, “what kinds of files can Notepad++ read”: any kind of file that stores its text as “plain text” using UTF-8, UTF-16, or any of the old 8bit code pages that DOS used in the 80s and 90s. Anything that stores its text along with formatting in a proprietary or open binary format (like MS Word, OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer, or Adobe Acrobat) will not be readable/editable by Notepad++.

If you mean, “what are the files types available when I do Save As on a new file”, you can see them when you pull down the Save As Types entry field; they are listed in the Settings > Style Configurator > Language panel; they are also in the langs.xml config file, which shows all the extensions for each of the file types (the dialog will default to the first extension in the list for each file type for Saving; but for reading, if it’s any of those file types, it will be interpreted as that text.

That previous paragraph also basically answered the related “what file types can Notepad++ syntax-highlight by default?”, too. Though without “by default”, you can extend that with User Defined Languages