One of the most useful features of AB Commander is its built-in text editor that you can use to quickly edit text files. You can use it very easily: just select the text file you want to edit or view, and press Ctrl+Q. The text file will open in a separate window, offering the basic file editing capabilities:

In addition to the built-in internal text editor, you can also set up an alternative text editor for use in cases when you want to have the additional text-editing capabilities not offered by the built-in text editor. By default, the external text editor can be accessed by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Q and it is set up to run Windows Notepad. However, Windows Notepad does not offer much more than the built-in text editor.

If you really want to have a powerful text editor at your fingertips, you may want to change the external text editor from Notepad to something more advanced. One of the more popular text editor available on the Internet is Notepad++. It offers many advanced text editing features, including syntax highlighting, tabbed user interface, plug-in support, etc. And it’s free!

To set up Notepad++ as the external text editor in AB Commander, choose View – Options from the AB Commander menu, and select the Editor page:

Click on the Options button next to the External choice, and then enter the path to the Notepad++ executable into the box:

Note that on your computer Notepad++ could be installed into a different folder. For example, if you have a 64-bit version of Windows, then Notepad++ would most probably be installed under the C:\Program Files (x86) folder. You can always determine the correct path by analyzing the properties of the shortcut to Notepad++ that you use (on the Desktop or on the Start Menu):

Another option that AB Commander offers is which editor (internal or external) you want to be the preferred one (that is, accessible via the Ctrl+Q keyboard shortcut), and which one should be the alternative one (accessible via the Ctrl+Shift+Q combination). You can choose that on the Editor page shown above.