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How to change background color in the Notepad++ text editor?
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Solved themeseditornotepad++
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8

310

Does anyone know how to change the background color, font size, and other appearance-based settings in Notepad++? The default is white but I am trying to change it into a dark gray or something else.

Expense answered 10/6, 2014 at 17:20 Comment(1)
answer for new version (8) is recent ; has less votes: https://mcmap.net/q/99281/-how-to-change-background-color-in-the-notepad-text-editor – Squatness
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480

Go to Settings -> Style Configurator

Select Theme: Choose whichever you like best (the top two are easiest to read by most people's preference)

Dismuke answered 10/6, 2014 at 17:23 Comment(3)
Recent versions require themes to be placed in [NPP-INSTALL-FOLDER]\themes or %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes. If you use the [NPP-INSTALL-FOLDER] location, and NPP is installed by default to %ProgramFiles%, ensure Notepad++ runs with Administrator privileges to make changes to the theme. – Ethelstan
There are 4 dark themes near the top of the list in 2nd to 5th place and more below. No installation needed for these. v7.9.5 – Alberik
An update changed the theme folder from the Notepad++ install folder to AppData. See my answer for more info. – Montreal
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60

You may need admin access to do it on your system.

  1. Create a folder 'themes' in the Notepad++ installation folder i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++
  2. Search or visit pages like http://timtrott.co.uk/notepad-colour-schemes/ to download the favourite theme. It will be an XML file.
    • Note: I prefer Neon any day.
  3. Download the themes from the site and drag them to the themes folder.
    • Note: I was unable to copy-paste or create new files in 'themes' folder so I used drag and that worked.
  4. Follow the steps provided by @triforceofcourage to select the new theme in Notepad++ preferences.
Tizzy answered 8/9, 2016 at 19:38 Comment(1)
why does no theme support JSON? damn I just want to invert the normal one or something to keep syntax highlighting for ALL languages... – Resect
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45

From version v8 released 2021-06-07 Notepad++ has additional Dark Mode option.

To enable it go to Settings -> Preferences -> Enable dark mode

dark mode

Effect:

enter image description here

Next step: Go to Settings -> Style Configurator

Select Theme: Choose whichever you like best (over half of styles here are dark, but each is different).

Hint: click on theme list and use keyboard arrows 🔼 and 🔽 to switch between themes and test all of them.

enter image description here

Effect after all steps (Obsydian theme here):

enter image description here

Meleager answered 20/6, 2021 at 22:12 Comment(0)
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24

There seems to have been an update some time in the past 3 years which changes the location of where to place themes in order to get them working.

Previosuly, themes were located in the Notepad++ installation folder. Now they are located in AppData:

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes

My answer is an update to @Amit-IO's answer about manually copying the themes.

  1. In Explorer, browse to: %AppData%\Notepad++.
  2. If a folder called themes does not exist, create it.
  3. Download your favourite theme from wherever (see Amit-IO's answer for a good list) and save it to %AppData%\Notepad++\themes.
  4. Restart Notepad++ and then use Settings -> Style Configurator. The new theme(s) will appear in the list.
Montreal answered 17/10, 2019 at 11:24 Comment(3)
plus 1 to your answer for making others life easier – Midi
Not quite right. In the latest version (7.8.4, early 2020), you can place themes in either [NPP-INSTALL-FOLDER]\themes or %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes. Not sure which is "better"... – Ethelstan
@Ethelstan %AppData% folder for local user only, Install folder for all users. Not everyone has access to the install folder, therefor you can always use the %Appdata% folder – Superconductivity
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8

If anyone wants to enable dark mode, you may follow the below steps

  • Open your Notepad++, and select Settings on the menu bar, and choose Style configurator.
  • Select theme Obsidian (you can choose other dark themes)
  • Click on Save & Close

enter image description here

Dube answered 22/10, 2020 at 5:23 Comment(1)
how can i add Obsidian if it's not there?? – Com
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1

Notepad++ changed in the past couple of years, and it requires a few extra steps to set up a dark theme.

The answer by Amit-IO is good, but the example theme that is needed has stopped being maintained. The DraculaTheme is active. Just download the XML and put it in a themes folder. You may need Admin access in Windows.

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes

https://draculatheme.com/notepad-plus-plus

Softball answered 23/11, 2020 at 20:18 Comment(0)
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1

If you are not able to add the theme, a workaround is that go to

USER/Appdata/LocalRoaming/Notepad++

make sure you save whatever the data is there in stylers.xml as back up before.

There you will find a stylers.xml you can edit that only, with any xml format you need. (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dracula/notepad-plus-plus/master/Dracula.xml)

Sometimes even after adding the file, notepadd++ doesn't pick up the theme. To revert back just edit back stylers.xml with the backup file.

After restarting it, you can see notepad++ has taken that style as default.

Gag answered 9/7, 2021 at 4:58 Comment(0)
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I have just installed the latest version Notepad++ website (currently it is v8.1) which provides an explicit dark mode setting. Go to Settings -> Preferences... -> Dark Mode -> check the Enable dark mode tick box. The editor might need to be restarted to take effect completely. https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/

Guimond answered 23/6, 2021 at 17:39 Comment(0)

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