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I'm on a relatively new Windows 7 machine and in Notepad++ the TextFX HTMLTidy doesn't work. It says "Unable to find libTidy.dll in the system path or C:\program files (x86)\Notepad++\plugins\Config\tidy\libTidy.dll". Some links suggest moving the files to that location, but where do I get them from? Argh, why do I always find Notepad++ plugins so frustrating!

I'm using Notepad++ 5.9.3 on Windows 7 x64.

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  • If you have htmlTidy installed, just do a file find starting at c:\ (or the drive on which you have it installed). You probabaly don't want to move the dll, just copy it. Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 17:00
  • 2
    i don't have htmlTidy installed, it's supposed to come with Notepad++ Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 17:07
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    Wow, this is almost a year old and it's still happening. HtmlTidy should be a plugin instead. Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 19:26

7 Answers 7

149

Oh, it looks like it's something annoying with plugins not being included in 5.9.3, but being included in earlier versions. See post here.

The solution is to download the 5.9 ZIP file from here, then copy the plugins\config folder to the Notepad++\plugins folder.

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10 Comments

@Rory - I have version 5.9.6.2 (UNICODE) but when I try what you suggested by downloading 5.9 and then copying the config folder into the plugins folder it does not seem to work. Has something else changed?
@chobo2 - Download and install the latest notepad++ (v6.1.1 as at today) from notepad-plus-plus.org/download ... then from npp.5.9.bin.zip (linked to in Rory's comment above) copy the contents of the ansi\plugins\Config\tidy\ folder into:(notepad++ install dir)\plugins\Config\tidy - finally, restart notepad++ (Sorry for all the edits, I managed to really screw up my comment!)
Above comment by Chris worked for new Notepad++ 6.1.5 as well.
Works with my 6.1.x version as well, but only the ANSI version: stackoverflow.com/questions/11591532/notepad-6-1-x-and-htmltidy
Remember to restart Notepad++
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22

After searching around, I found that you don't have to download Notepad++ v5.9.

TextFX with HTML Tidy can be downloaded from here.

Copy the NPPTextFX folder to the Notepad++ plugins\Config directory (such as C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\plugins\Config), rename it to tidy, then restart Notepad++.


TextFX is no longer being developed, see this page.

This plugin has no maintainer and wants one; please see TextFX's Future

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15

For those still searching for libtidy.dll. It appears that version 5.9 of Notepad++ is no longer available for download (at least there is no link on the downloads page and making a educated stab at a URL of http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v5.9.html returns a 404).

There is a 'dll' link on the HTML Tidy SourceForge page (http://tidy.sourceforge.net/) dated 2006; but it returns a DNS error.

Google did return a hit on a site called "DLL Me," but I'm not going to download anything from a site that sketchy; so as of this writing: no libtidy.dll to be found.

--edit-- Finally found a link directly out of the TuxFamily distro server: npp.5.9.bin.zip (thanks @noah).

1 Comment

9

As an alternative, you can use the HTML Tidy 2 plugin, which is based on Tidy HTML 5. It works with the latest Notepad++ version.

You can install it using the plugin manager, or manually by grabbing the latest version and extracting the contents into your Notepad++\plugins directory.

An updated version of the plugin can be found Here.

4 Comments

Doesn't seem to work out of the box. Every XML document I've tried it on has thrown an error, despite the XML being valid.
@SimonTewsi For XML you need to install the XML Tools plugin.
Install fails in Notepad 7.2.2
Updated version can be found here: github.com/geoffmcl/NppTidy2
4

It doesn't look like the libTidy.dll functionality was actually removed, just coopted by NppTextFX.

I enabled it in my installation of Notepad++ v6.1.5 by installing TextFX Characters via Plugin Manager. Two things happened after that: 1. NppTextFX.dll was copied in (Notepad++ install directory)\plugins\ directory and; 2. TextFX menu item is enabled between Run and Plugins, which now has the TextFX HTML Tidy option.

Also, there's no difference between the ANSI and Unicode versions of libTidy.dll in npp.5.9.bin.zip. I ran both through WinMerge.

1 Comment

I still had to find a copy of npp.5.9.bin.zip based on previous comments for a working copy of libTidy.dll, so yeah, that is a prerequisite.
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You can download this file from here and put this file in this path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\plugins\Config\tidy

Comments

0

I found the best option ever for this:

In Notepad++ 6.3.2, enable the "TextFX Characters" plugin from the "plugin manager".

That is all.

Comments

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