How do I format XML in Notepad

Question

I have Notepad   and I got some XML code which is very long  When I pasted it in Notepad   there was a long line of code  difficult to read and work with    I want to know if there is a simple way to make the text readable  by readable I mean properly tabbed code    I can do it manually  but I want a permanent solution to this as I have faced this several times  I am sure there is a way to do this as I have done it once before a couple of years back  maybe with Visual Studio or some other editor  I don t remember   But can Notepad   do it

User · Answer

But can Notepad   do it    If the XML is invalid  the answer is apparently  no   I tried Notepad   with the Tidy2 and XMLTools plugins  Both give errors similar to  errors encountered  please fix   If you don t care about errors  that s a PITA   Instead  open it in visual studio then edit -  advanced -  format document  Quick and pretty

User · Answer

You can t  granted you don t have access to install plugins  But you probably have or can get Eclipse  Visual Studio can do this too     Ctrl   N  new file     choose XML file     paste your XML content    Ctrl   Shift   K  format   If you want to format JSON NotePad   can do this by default with Ctrl   Alt   m

User · Answer

The location of XML tools has changed slightly since this question was first asked  I am currently using Notepad   v7 8 6 New location is   Plugins tab Plugins Admin    Plugins Admin dialog appears with Available plugins tab as the default Scroll to the bottom and check the XML Tools checkbox Click Install button in top right of the dialog  This will close Notepad   while it installs and then restart it automatically  Then there are a couple keyboard shortcuts to beautify the XML   Pretty Print  Ctrl   Shift   Alt   B Pretty Print  indent attributes   Ctrl   Shift   Alt   A  To see more XML Tools options   Plugins tab XML Tools option

User · Answer

UniversalIndentGUI did the job for me  once configured properly as described above   TextFX would not install and run correctly on an old PC I have running Windows nbsp XP  There are instructions above for manual installation of various DLL files  but I d rather avoid any manual installation   UniversalIndentGUI formatted some lines like this            lt ClockStatus gt 1          lt  ClockStatus gt    And I would have preferred            lt ClockStatus gt 1 lt  ClockStatus gt    But the output is still much better than one long line

User · Answer

Try TextFX   TextFX Html Tidy   Tidy  reindent XML  If you can t try with Eclipse  do right button  source  and correct indent

User · Answer

Since I see lots of comments about people having problems with the plugin  I thought I d mention the work around that I use   I just use one of the online sites for XML viewing  I use https   codebeautify org xmlviewer  but there are plenty out there  as follows    Paste the XML content in the input window Click the  Beautify   Format  button Copy formatted XML output from the result window Paste in Notepad     I don t know if it qualifies as answering the OP s question exactly  but it s very simple and easy for anyone who is having problems with the plugin

User · Answer

There is no such a thing like TextFX in Notepad    not in the latest version at least  This is one of the reasons I m still with DreamWeaver even if it is driving me insane being slow and unresponsive from time to time

User · Answer

All the previous answers do not define how to add the plugin manager in your Notepad   installation   This is for the folks who do not see the the plugin manager in the plugin tab  Download the plugin manager from this link - this is for the 64-bit plugin manager  Once you download the plugin manager  paste in the plugin folder  This is was my location of plugin folder  C  Program Files Notepad   plugins    After pasting the  dll file restart Notepad    Now you can install any plugin  To install a plugin  click on the plugin tab  then go to plugin manager and select the plugin whatever you want

User · Answer

If you get this error     Cannot load 32-bit plugin  XMLTools dll is not compatible with the current version of Notepad    Here you can find a working version for Windows 10 x64  Xml Tools 2 4 9 2 Unicode  Note  It s the only version I ve found working on Windows 10 Professional x64

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Step 1  Install XML Tools plugin Step 2  Format     completed

User · Answer

Plugins -  XML Tools -  Pretty Print  libXML     or    Ctrl Alt Shift B   You probably need to install the plugin      Plugins   Plugins Manager   Show Plugins Manager   If you are behind a proxy  download it from here   Then copy XMLTools dll to the plugins directory and external libraries  four dlls  into the root Notepad   directory

User · Answer

You need to install the XML tool from the Plugins menu item   Plugins Admin      Plugins Admin dialog appears and then scroll to bottom of available plugins and check the XML tools  install it and then Ctrl   Alt   Shift   B OR the option for XML Tool above shows up

User · Answer

The latest version of Notepad   x64 v7 6 2 on Windows nbsp 10 already moved the plugin manager to  Plugins Admin     Old versions of Notepad   and plugin manager won t work

User · Answer

Here are most of plugins you can use in Notepad   to format your XML code    UniversalIndentGUI  I recommend this one       Enable  text auto update  in plugin manager-  UniversalIndentGUI   Shortkey   CTRL ALT SHIFT J    TextFX   this is the tool that most of the users use       Shortkey   CTRL ALT SHIFT B    XML Tools  customized plugin for XML       Shortkey   CTRL ALT SHIFT B

User · Answer

OK  here is how I did it in Notepad      Plugins Plugin manager Show plugin manager Check XML tools Install Restart Notepad   Open XML file Plugins XML tools Pretty print  XML only -- with line breaks

User · Answer

For best results  you should use both TextFX XML tidy and XML tools pretty print  Here s how and why   1 TextFX - gt  TextFX HTML Tidy - gt  Tidy  reindent XML   TextFX has the benefit of wrapping long lines  which XML Tools does not do  but it doesn t indent those new lines correctly   2  XML Tools - gt  Pretty print  Text indent    XML Tools complements TextFX by indenting the newly wrapped lines nicely

User · Answer

You can find details here To Quickly Format XML using Pretty Print  libXML   Installing the XML Tools  If you run Notepad   and look in the Plugins menu  you   ll see that the XML Tools aren   t there    Download the XML tools from here  Unzip the file and copy the XMLTools dll to the Notepad   plugins folder  in the example above  C  Program Files  x86  Notepad   plugins   Re-start Notepad   and you should now see the XMLTools appear in the Plugins menu  Unzip the ext libs zip file and then copy the unzipped DLLs to the Notepad   installation directory  in the example above  C  Program Files  x86  Notepad     Re-start Notepad   and you should finally see the proper XML Tools menu  The feature I use the most is    Pretty print  XML only     with line breaks       This will format any piece of XML with all the proper line spacing

User · Answer

Notepad   v6 6 3 with plugin  XML Tools  and shortcut Ctrl   Alt   Shift   B works fine

User · Answer

Try Plugins -  XML Tools -  Pretty Print  libXML  or  XML only - with line breaks Ctrl   Alt   Shift   B   You may need to install XML Tools using your plugin manager in order to get this option in your menu   In my experience  libXML gives nice output but only if the file is 100  correctly formed

User · Answer

If your XML is imperfect  try this with the TextFX Characters plugin  install from Plugin manager    First  find a     to copy into the clipboard  Then select ALL your text  and then     On the main menu  TextFX -  TextFX Edit -  Solit lines at clipboard char     This will do a reasonable job  not perfect  but things will be readable  at least   I had to do this with XML code stored in an SQL Server database  where the headers weren t stored  just the XML body

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