How to Enable Strikethrough feature

Simanta Sarkar

Enable Support for Strikethrough in Notepad++:

Download the font BPtypewrite or any other font that support strikethrough option by default.
Extract zip file then install individual font files by right clicking on it and from context menu hit the install option.
Open Notepad++ > Go to Top Menu > Language > User Defined Language > Define your language > This will open a popup window
Update the popup form as mentioned below -
a. User language: Select “Markdown (preinstalled)” from dropdown
b. Click on “Operators & Delimiters” tab
c. Modify Delimiter 8 style option as below
Open: ~~
Escape:
Close: ~~
d. Click on Styler > This will open Styler Dialog
e. Update “Font options” as below -
Name: BPtypewriteStrikethrogh
Size: 10
f. Click on “OK” button
Testing
Now open a new file in Notepad++
Go to Top Menu > Language > Markdown (Preinstalled)
Type: This is a strike through text with ~~ at the beginning and the end of the text
This will show text in Strikethrough font.
Tested version: 8.5.5 (64-bit)

mkupper

@Simanta-Sarkar That seems like a lot of work for little gain, that is also not portable to others that don’t also install the fonts plus Notepad++ UDL, etc.

As plain text does not have styles or attributes it is better to use a markup language that supports styles or attributes. This message forum’s markdown language supports ~~strikeout~~ for example by typing ~~strikeout~~ which the markdown translates into the HTML <s>strikeout</s>. Even people using specialized web browsers that render web pages as plain text will see the strikeout as intended as it’s based on well known standards. Blind people use these web browsers along with text to speech software.

I already had the Lynx web browser installed as part of accessibility testing and see that strikeout text is displayed as [DEL: text with a strikeout through it :DEL]. Thus a blind person will still understand that the web page includes some deleted text that is part of the document.

mkupper

@Simanta-Sarkar I’ll add that what you did was a cool idea. I had not thought about using the UDL system to trigger using another font and size.

If the goal is to highlight instances of ~~ pairs in a text file then your idea does the trick. If you are in an environment, such as a legal office, where your text files are already using ~~ pairs then it makes perfect sense.

Simanta Sarkar

@All: Please check the below post for reference links (Font download link, font Installation instruction link) and screenshots:

Also note step 4c should be as below:
Open: ~~
Escape: \
Close: ~~

mkupper

@Simanta-Sarkar

This forum includes an article, FAQ: “Notepad++ is a Text Editor, not a Word Processor”, that goes into this.

Many of the comments on the superuser and stackoverflow links you provided are saying the same thing. That said, people can coerce Notepad++ into behaving where some of the markdown syntax displays in ways similar to how they would display if you had a full markdown processor.

Part of the problem within Notepad++ is that it does not support the concept of a preview window. Many people have asked for this, mainly so they could type HTML and instantly see the results. These requests/suggestions have always been rejected as Notepad++'s focus is the underlying text that then may be processed by other applications such as a web browser or markup/markdown processor to render the text into what end-users see. Notepad++ is not supposed to be a WYSIWYG editor.

That all said, it’s cool to see that Notepad++ can be coerced into displaying ~~strikethrough or strikeout text~~.