In Notepad++, the user can adjust the width of the frame around the edit area by changing the value of Preferences -> Editing -> Border Width.
But for standard text files, I find that having the left edge of the text so close to the frame makes the text harder to read.
Is there any way to increase the width of the empty padding within the edit area for standard text files?
There is a way to increase the space before the text, though I have not found a way to control the colour of this space yet.
The margins in Notepad++ can be changed using macros. Open up your shortcuts.xml. This can be found in %APPDATA%\Notepad++\shorcuts.xml. The copy in Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\... is a template.
Add the following macro inside the <Macros> node of the xml then restart Notepad++.
<Macro name="Increase Margin" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="no" Key="39">
<Action type="0" message="2242" wParam="3" lParam="20" sParam=""/>
</Macro>
This will create a new macro with shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Right that sets the width of the Fold margin to 20px (lParam). The shortcut can be changed easily from within Notepad++ by going into Macro->Modify Shortcut and changing the buttons required. This will need to be run
each time that Notepad++ is started, however.
Further info on how to tweak the macro can be found in the above link
