A text and code editor for Windows, built for people who work by keyboard and screen reader. Free and open source.
EdSharp edits plain text, Markdown, HTML, rich text and source code; opens Word documents, PDF files, slide decks and spreadsheets as text you can read and search; compiles and runs programs, landing the cursor on the error; checks spelling without Microsoft Word; and talks to an AI model running on your own computer for translation, summarizing and questions about code.
Run the installer and accept the defaults. On its last page you are offered optional pieces as checkboxes, each saying what it will do and how much space it needs:
- Python and the document tools are ticked. Together they cost about a hundred and fifty megabytes and give rich PDF conversion and the thesaurus.
- Git, Node.js and Ollama with its AI models are not ticked. Each backs a real feature, but each serves some people and not others, and the models are large.
Whatever you tick installs after you press Finish, and one summary then reports each item by name. That summary is saved in the logs folder under your local application data, and you can see it again by running summarizeSetup.cmd from the program folder.
EdSharp needs nothing else. It runs on the .NET Framework built into every modern Windows, and it is a 64-bit program.
Start EdSharp with Alt+Control+E from anywhere in Windows.
Type something, then try these:
- F1 opens this guide's larger companion, the user guide.
- Control+F1 turns on Key Describer: press any key to hear what it does without doing it, and press Control+F1 again to leave.
- Alt+F10 lists every command alphabetically, with its key.
- Control+O opens a file; Control+Shift+O opens one in another format, converting it to text you can read.
- F7 checks spelling. Shift+F7 gives synonyms for the word at the cursor.
- Control+F5 compiles or runs the file you are editing and takes you to the first error. Control+Shift+F5 chooses which compiler to use.
- F12 asks an AI model on your computer a question. Alt+Shift+F7 translates the document or the selection.
- Alt+Shift+E writes the document out as something else: a Word document, a web page, a slide deck, plain text.
Nothing here needs a mouse, and every command has a name, a key and a description you can hear.
- EdSharp.md — the user guide: every command, every setting, and how the parts fit together.
- Tutorials.md — quick starts by role: Python developer, NVDA add-on developer, JAWS script developer, web developer, C# developer, translator, magazine writer, journal author, slide presenter, document summarizer, web researcher, batch conversion operator. Control+Shift+F1 opens it.
- Hotkeys.md — every command with its key, listed by command and by key. Generated from the program itself, so it cannot fall behind.
- FAQ.md — the questions people actually ask.
- History.md — what changed and why, newest first.
- Development.md — how to build EdSharp and how it is put together.
- Announce.md — what is new in this release.
- License.md — the MIT License, and the licenses of the parts that came from elsewhere.
Each is also here as a web page with the same name and an .htm extension, which is what the Help menu opens.
EdSharp writes a log for every session, in the logs folder under your local application data. Control+F12 copies that log's path to the clipboard as a file, ready to attach to a message. Sending it with a description of what you were doing is the fastest way to a fix.
EdSharp is free software under the MIT License: use it, copy it, change it, and pass it on, including in something you sell, as long as the copyright notice travels with it. The full terms are in License.md, and in License.htm beside it.
Some parts of EdSharp were written by other people and keep their own licenses. License.md names each one.
Jamal Mazrui