PowerGREP sports a full-featured built-in file editor for editing both text files and binary files. PowerGREP’s editor is built on the same technology as EditPad, a popular text editor designed by Jan Goyvaerts and sold by Just Great Software Co. Ltd., just like PowerGREP.
The key advantage of PowerGREP’s built-in editor is that it highlights search matches when you preview or execute an action (but not when you use Quick Execute). If you’ve previewed a search-and-replace action, you can replace individual matches in the editor with just one click. If you executed the search-and-replace, you can revert individual replacements to the original text with just one click. Replacing and reverting individual matches is much more comfortable than answering yes/no for each replacement while the action is executed, as most other grep tools do. The editor supports unlimited undo and redo, so mistakes are easy to fix. The highlighting is automatically updated to reflect replaced matches and reverted replacements.
| Arrow key | Moves the text cursor (blinking vertical bar). |
| Ctrl+Left arrow [text] | Moves the text cursor to the start of the previous word or the end of the previous line, whichever is closer. |
| Ctrl+Right arrow [text] | Moves the text cursor to the start of the next line or the end of the current line, whichever is closer. |
| Ctrl+Up/Down arrow | Scrolls the text one line up or down. |
| Page up/down | Moves the text cursor up or down an entire screen. |
| Ctrl+Page up/down | Scrolls the text one screen up or down. |
| Home | Moves the text cursor to the beginning of the line. |
| Ctrl+Home | Moves the text cursor to the start of the entire text. |
| End | Moves the text cursor to the end of the line. |
| Ctrl+End | Moves the text cursor to the end of the entire text. |
| Shift+Movement key | Moves the text cursor and expand or shrink the selection towards the new text cursor position. If there was no selection, one is started. Pressing Ctrl as well, will move the text cursor correspondingly. |
| Alt+Shift+Movement [text] | The same as when Alt is not pressed, except that if word wrap is off, the selection will be rectangular instead of flowing along with the text. |
| Enter | Inserts a line break. |
| Shift+Enter | Inserts a line break. |
| Ctrl+Enter | Inserts a page break. |
| Delete | Deletes the current selection if there is one and selections are not persistent. Otherwise, the character to the right of the caret is deleted. |
| Ctrl+Delete | Deletes the current selection if there is one. Otherwise, the part of the current word to the right of the text cursor is deleted [text]. Deletes the current selection [hex]. |
| Shift+Ctrl+Delete | All the text on the current line to the right of the text cursor is deleted [text]. Deletes the current selection [hex]. |
| Backspace | Deletes the current selection if there is one and selections are not persistent. Otherwise, the character to the left of the caret is deleted. |
| Ctrl+Backspace | Deletes the current selection if there is one and selections are not persistent. Otherwise, the part of the current word to the left of the text cursor is deleted [text]. Deletes the current selection [hex]. |
| Shift+Ctrl+Backspace | Deletes the current selection if there is one and selections are not persistent. Otherwise, all the text on the current line to the left of the text cursor is deleted [text]. Deletes the current selection [hex]. |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo the last edit |
| Ctrl+R | Redo the last undone edit |
| Alt+Backspace | Alternative shortcut for Undo |
| Alt+Shift+Backspace | Alternative shortcut for Redo |
| Insert | Toggles between insert and overwrite mode. |
| Tab [text] | If there is a selection, the entire selection is indented. Otherwise, a tab is inserted. |
| Tab [hex] | Makes the text cursor switch between the hexadecimal side and text side. |
| Shift+Tab [text] | If there is a selection, the entire selection is unindented (outdented). Otherwise, if there is a tab, or a series of spaces the size of a tab, to the left of the text cursor, that tab or spaces are deleted. |
| Ctrl+A | Select all |
| Ctrl+Y | Delete the current line |
| Shift+Ctrl+Y | Duplicate the current line |
| Ctrl+X | Cut: Delete the selected text and put it on the clipboard. |
| Shift+Ctrl+X | Cut Append: Delete the selected text, and append it to the text already on the clipboard. |
| Ctrl+C | Copy: Put the selected text on the clipboard, replacing any data help by the clipboard. |
| Shift+Ctrl+C | Copy Append: Append the selected text to the text already on the clipboard. |
| Ctrl+V | Paste: Insert the text held by the clipboard. |
| Shift+Ctrl+V | Swap with Clipboard: Replace the text on the clipboard with the selected text, and vice versa. |
| Shift+Delete | Alternative shortcut for Cut |
| Ctrl+Insert | Alternative shortcut for Copy |
| Shift+Insert | Alternative shortcut for Paste |
Dragging means to move the mouse before releasing the mouse button you pressed. If you move the mouse pointer to the edge of the editor space while dragging, the text will start to scroll automatically. Modifier keys like shift or control must be pressed before pressing the mouse button and kept depressed until the mouse button is released.
| Left click | Moves the text cursor to the spot where you clicked. |
| Shift+Left click | Moves the text cursor and expands or shrinks the selection. If there is no selection, the text between the old and new cursor positions becomes selected. If you click outside of the selection, the selection plus the text between the selection and the new cursor position becomes selected. If you click inside the selection, the new selection is the text between the original start of the selection and the new cursor position. |
| Left click+drag | When clicking outside the selection, a new selection is created from the point where you press the mouse button until the point where you release it. When clicking inside the selection, the selected text deleted and inserted again at the spot (outside the selection) where you release the mouse button. |
| Shift+Left click+drag | Expands or shrinks the selection like Shift+Left click, but then the text cursor is moved and the selection adjusted until you release the mouse button. |
If you press Alt while changing the selection with the mouse, and word wrap is off, the selection becomes rectangular.
| Rotate wheel | Scrolls the text a single line up or down. |
| Shift+Wheel | Moves the text cursor a line up or down, like pressing the up or down arrow keys on the keyboard. |
| Ctrl+Wheel | Scrolls the text an entire screen up or down. |
| Shift+Ctrl+Wheel | Moves the text cursor a screen up or down, like pressing page up or down on the keyboard. |