Notepad++ is great for mashing text, and I use it to quickly build batch rename files. The column mode editing is great, but I must be tripping over my feet in someway I’m not spotting.

I generate a directory with dir /b > rn.bat, then edit in Notepad++. I add some quotes and a ren command, duplicate the filename on each line, and finally edit that duplicate filename to my liking. This short video describes it better than I’ve done above.

In that last step where I attempt to paste in the column mode selected text, it does not do a column mode paste. The weird part is that if I quit Notepad++ and come back to it, it might just work. It will work for long spans of time, then get in a mood where it does not work. If I’ve done something differently between when it works and does not, I cannot figure out what.

Word Wrap is turned off, and I should have plenty of line width such that it wouldn’t want to wrap anyhow. Can anyone see or guess what I’m doing here?

Thanks.