Delete whitespace left and right in Notepad++

hotkeyskeyboard shortcutsnotepadwhitespace

In Notepad++, is there a hotkey to wipe all white space left and right of the cursor?

I'd imagine it would be the same as "delete current word", but I can't find it.

Ctrl + Del deletes to the end of the word
Ctrl + Backspace deletes to the beginning of the word

Best Answer

There is no shortcut by default, but you can easily add one using the shortcut mapper. The action to remove leading and trailing space is found in Edit > Blank operations > Remove leading and trailing space

You can map it by going to Settings > Shortcut Mapper... > Then scrolling to whichever one you want (such as 29) and double clicking on the cell under Shortcut.

Update

The functionality is included by default in Notepad++ v6.4.5 and later. 6.4.5 was released August 9th 2013. Note the current version is 7.5.8 released July 23rd 2018.

If you are using a version of Notepad++ older than v6.4.5, the rest of this answer still applies.

Natively

You can do this natively in Notepad++, but in order to replicate the behaviour of Firefox, you need to disable the document switcher and MRU behaviour.

Disable MRU functionality

Navigate to Settings > Preferences... > MISC..
- Where it says Document Switcher (Ctrl+TAB) uncheck the first check box Enable.
- Hit the Close button.

Create the Ctrl+PGUP/PGDN shortcuts

Navigate to Settings > Shortcut Mapper....
- Make sure you are on the Main menu tab.
- Scroll to the bottom and you should see in entries 192 Switch to previous document and 193 Switch to next document.
- By default these should be mapped to Ctrl+Shift+Tab and Ctrl+Tab respectively.
- Double click anywhere on the 192 line and change it to Ctrl+Page up.
- Double click anywhere on the 193 line and change it to Ctrl+Page down.
- Hit the Close button.

That's it!

Please note that you will no longer have access to the Ctrl+Tab/Shift+Tab MRU behaviour now. If, like me, you cannot live without this read on.

Another (better) option

Notepad++ defaults to using the back and forward buttons on a mouse to switch to the adjacent left and right tabs, so if you are a fan of AutoHotkey, you can use this little script:

#IfWinActive, ahk_class Notepad++
; Switch to the adjacent tab to the left
^PgUp::
    Send, {XButton1}
    Return
; Switch to the adjacent tab to the right
^PgDn::
    Send, {XButton2}
    Return

This won't interfere with other programs and enables to you have your cake and eat it! You can navigate left and right through adjacent the tabs using Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn and you can still switch to your last used tab using the built-in document switcher functionality using Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab - just like Firefox :)

Multiline select in Notepad++

The feature you're describing is essentially a pretty version of "replace all", which Notepad++ and any decent text editor will have. I'm not aware of Notepad++ having the feature exactly as you describe it, so I'd just do a "Replace All". (btw, I'm using N++ version 5.8.7)