Crypto Notepad is a free, portable text editor that allows you to encrypt your notes.

All documents are saved in their own unique format; cnp, which is short for Crypto Notepad. Because of this, you will need to tell Windows to open it with Crypto Notepad once should you try to open a cnp file in Windows Explorer or File Explorer. Screenshot 3 below shows what it looks like if you open it with another text editor.

Crypto Notepad has both the traditional drop-down menus with File, Edit, Tools, and Help as well as small icons below that for quick access to commonly used features including New, Open, Save, Open File Location, Cut, Copy, Paste, Change Key, Settings, and Lock.

Settings allow you to change fonts and colors, encrypt and decrypt settings as well as a few application settings.

For example, you can choose the hash algorithm from SHA1 or MD5, and the key size can be 128, 192 or 256. Finally, the salt and password iterations can be changed. If you don't know what any of these are then, you'll want to leave it be. Also, you want to change anything here before you begin using it as you won't be able to encrypt previously encrypted files.

Overall, Crypto Notepad packs enough even for less savvy users. It's small, has a clean interface and just enough settings to tweak it to your liking.

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