Just like with Throwback Thursday, I’m starting a new weekly feature for Saturday – Saturday Spotlight, where I talk about genealogy programs and utilities that are older (but still useful) or maybe aren’t as widely known as other genealogy programs.
Starting it off is “GEDCOM Lexer Plugin for Notepad++”, a plugin for the popular free Windows text editor Notepad++ (also handy for working with source code). The name of the plugin is wordy, but very descriptive, although I’m not going to get into the definition of “lexer” because then we have to talk about “parser” and programming, but basically this plugin makes it easier to read GEDCOM files in Notepad++. You get syntax highlighting and can customize the coloration and font styles. You can also view GEDCOM files in an outline mode by folding sections (see screenshot below).
There’s not a lot to say about it – if you are on Windows (or a Mac with a Windows virtual machine) and use Notepad++ a lot, and need to look at raw GEDCOM files, it’s a nice little (and free) plugin.
It was last updated in July of 2022, but I just verified that it works with the latest (as of this writing) version of Notepad++ 8.6.9 (released in July of 2024). It is supported by the Notepad++ “Plugin Manager”, so it’s an “official” plugin.
It also received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 GeneAwards (TamuraJones.net).
Features:
- 32-bit and 64-bit
- Syntax highlighting
- Recognizes UTF-8 (BOM/no BOM), UTF-16, and regular ASCII
- “Basic” GEDCOM grammar errors are highlighted
- Color scheme is configurable.
More Information:
- Notepad++ Download: https://notepad-plus-plus.org
- GEDCOM Lexer Plugin for Notepad++:
Screenshot I took of a sample GEDCOM file:
Screenshot from the official site, showing folding entries (useful if you have a large GEDCOM file and/or are looking for specific entries).
Wow, this is a nice find. I love NP++ and have occasionally looked at gedcom files in raw format. I can see this making it easier