Notepad++ Combine plugin – Combine/Merge two or more files

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This article explains how to download and install the Notepad++ Combine Plugin and Use it to merge text files.

Notepad++ Combine Plugin

Notepad++ is a free and open-source text editor available for the Windows platform. You can also install it on Linux using snap. This text editor supports plugins to extend the feature. Combine is one such plugin. This Plugin helps you to combine/merge two or more text.

NPP Combine Plugin Features,

  • Merge\combine all texts that are currently open
  • Insert filename before each text
  • Insert a line before and after each text (a line is: ——————————————————-)

Install Combine Plugin

Notepad++ provides Plugins Admin to manage plugin. It helps you to install, update plugins. Combine plugin is not available in the repository, so you need to manually install this plugin. You can use the plugin manager if available.

Manual Installation

In the manual method, you need to download the plugin and copy it to the Notepad++ Plugins folder.

Step by step instructions to install combine plugin in Notepad++.

  1. Download Combine Plugin from Official Page. It downloads combine.dll to your desktop. The current version of the plugin is 1.0 and it works with 32-bit Notepad++.
  2. Open Notepad++.
  3. Navigate to Plugins – > Open Plugins Folder… This opens the plugin folder.
  4. Create a folder Named Combine and copy the downloaded combine.dll. You should have admin privilege to copy files.
  5. Restart Notepad++.

Combine plugins should be visible under plugin menus as shown below.

Notepad++ Combine Plugin Menu

How to use Combine Plugin

Now let’s see how to use combine plugin to merge files.

To demonstrate the working of this plugin, let’s create  2 files file-1.txt and file2.txt. Below are the content of these files.

file-1.txt

I am line 1 in file 1
I am line 2 in file 1
I am line 3 in file 1

file-2.txt

I am line 1 in file 2
I am line 2 in file 2
I am line 3 in file 2

Now let’s see combine these files using the plugin.

Note:- Combine plugin works on all open files in Notepad++, so make sure to open only the files which you want to combine.

Open both the files in Notepad++. Click on Plugins-> Combine-> Start. It opens a popup as shown below.

Combine Plugin Option

Click on OK. You can see files are merged together in a new 1 file. Combine plugin reads file from left to right. file-1.txt contents are first followed by file-2.txt.

combine file with no option

Now let’s select a different option and see what happens.

Before text – insert filename

combine file insert filename before text

Before text – insert line

combine file insert line before text

After text – insert line

combine file insert line after text

After text – insert linefeed

combine file insert linefeed

Summary

We explained combine plugin in Details. We have also shown how to install the plugin and use it to combine 2 or more text files together.

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