How to Find a Line Number in Notepad

By Nick Peers

Notepad is included in all versions of Windows 7 and 8; use it to open plain text documents -- documents that don't contain any multimedia objects or text formatting. You don't need to purchase the Microsoft Office suite or install a trial version of Office if you work with such documents. If you want to search for a specific line of code, a verse in a long poem or an item in a long list of items, use the Go To feature to find the line in Notepad.

Finding a Line in Notepad

Before you attempt to find a line in a Notepad document, turn off the Word Wrap feature. The Word Wrap feature makes each line fit the viewable window and breaks longer lines into several smaller ones, and it often changes the number of lines in your document. Click "Format" and then click "Word Wrap" to disable the feature; a check mark is displayed to the left of Word Wrap when the feature is enabled.To go to a specific line, click "Edit" and select "Go To" to display the Go To Line dialog. Type the line number into the field and click "Go To" to find the line. The blinking cursor is positioned at the beginning of the specified line. Note that the Go To option is grayed out in the Edit menu if the Word Wrap feature is enabled.