Character Count on Windows 11 Notepad is finally here!

Check this out, Windows 11 users! Microsoft has been giving some love to the built-in Notepad app, and the latest update is a game-changer. They've finally added a character count feature! Now, when you're typing away, you can see the number of characters at the bottom – just like Microsoft Word does with words in a document (sometimes painful when you’re crawling towards reaching that final word count for a school essay or workplace assignment). 

Here's the cool part: when you select text, the status bar shows the character count for both the selected text and the whole document. And if you're not selecting anything, no worries – it still displays the character count for the entire document. It's like having your document's length right at your fingertips!

This character count addition is just the latest in a series of Notepad upgrades this year. They've thrown in a new autosave option, tabs for better organisation, a sleek dark mode, and yes, even a virtual fidget spinner. Notepad's getting all fancy!

Guess what's cooking in the latest Windows 11 test build? Not just Notepad but also some cool upgrades to the widgets section! Now, get this – soon, you'll have the power to show only widgets and hide that feed of news and articles that usually pops up in the widgets screen. Personally, I'm thrilled about this because that news feed is often filled with low-quality articles and stuff I'd rather not see in a built-in Windows feature.

But hey, keep in mind, these features are still in the testing phase, so Microsoft might sprinkle in a few changes here and there. But my hunch is we'll get to enjoy these awesome upgrades across all Windows 11 users by early 2024. Exciting times ahead!