Features

This section contains a comprehensive list of Hex Editor Neo features. It also contains links to other parts of this documentation that describe a given feature in more detail.

Instantly opening files of any size

Hex Editor Neo does not force any limit on file's size. Any file supported by the underlying file system (FAT, FAT32 or NTFS) is supported.

Working with shared file

Hex Editor Neo may share edited files with other applications. Should another application make a change to a shared file, Hex Editor Neo detects it and allows you to either discard a change or to merge it with changes in the editor. Automatic file compare may be used to find differences between the current and previous version. As an option, all previous versions of a file may be kept by the editor and used in your work.

Opening volumes (logical disks)

Hex Editor Neo supports opening volumes (logical disks) for viewing and editing.

Opening physical disks

Hex Editor Neo supports opening physical disks for viewing and editing.

Working with running processes

Hex Editor Neo allows you to view the information about running processes, open processes to investigate their memory layout and create light-weight process memory snapshots. Memory for a running process or any process snapshot may be opened for read-only and read/write access and two snapshots may be compared using the built-in File Comparison module. Application also supports launching external debugger for a selected process snapshot or saving a snapshot dump.

Full support for NTFS alternate data streams

Hex Editor Neo fully supports NTFS alternate data streams. A special NTFS Streams Tool Window displays all streams for the currently active file, allows you to delete or rename them, open them for editing or create new streams. In addition, the powerful Find Stream feature allows you to locate all streams on your computer.

Multiple Selection

Hex Editor Neo widely uses the concept of multiple selection. All Hex Editor Neo commands are fully compatible with multiple selection.

Multiple Cursors

Editor Windows allows settings alternate cursors in addition to a default one, allowing several editor commands to execute on multiple document locations simultaneously.

Selection Saving, Loading and Exporting

Selection object of any complexity can be compressed and saved to the file. Later, you may load this selection and/or merge it with an existing selection using different algorithms. In addition, all ranges in a selection may be copied to the Clipboard or saved to a text file. See the Working with Selection topic for more information.

Basic File Editing (write, fill, insert, delete, put/insert file, Clipboard operations, change file size, modify bits)

All these commands are described in detail in the Editor Commands documentation section.

Data encryption and decryption

A whole document or a part of it may be encrypted and decrypted, using any installed block or stream cipher.

Data Operations

A large set of data operation (bitwise, arithmetic, shifts, case change and bit/byte reversing) are provided.

Text Clipboard Operations

In addition to basic Clipboard operations (moving data blocks between the same or different documents or exchanging file data with Windows Explorer); Hex Editor Neo is capable of pasting text from the Clipboard. Text may be pasted “as is” or parsed as a sequence of numbers (decimal, hexadecimal, octal or binary). Parsed numbers are then put into the document.

Different encodings

Hex Editor Neo supports more than 130 different encodings, configurable separately for each editor window. They are used to interpret and edit document's data in different formats. Starting from version 4.95, UTF-8 encoding is supported as well.

Find and Find All

Hex Editor Neo provides an extremely efficient implementation of Find and Find All commands. Full support for ECMAScript-compatible regular expressions is provided. The result of a Find All command is a multiple selection - a browseable and easily editable object.

Replace and Replace All

Hex Editor Neo provides an extremely efficient implementation of Replace and Replace All commands. Full support for ECMAScript-compatible regular expressions is provided. Replace pattern may also be a regular expression.

Find in Files & Replace in Files

Hex Editor Neo provides you with a simple and effective mechanism of pattern searching and replacing in files residing in different folders. This feature is described in more detail in the Find in Files and Replace in Files sections. Include streams option may be used to add alternate data streams to a search list. Full support for ECMAScript-compatible regular expressions is provided.

Unlimited Undo & Redo steps

In fact, a more advanced Operation History management is provided by the Hex Editor Neo.

Operation history browsing

Hex Editor Neo allows you to instantly switch to any history operation.

History Save & Load

An entire document's operation history may be compressed and saved to a file and later loaded from it, effectively restoring all operations performed on the document.

Data Annotations

The user may provide additional text annotations or comments and associate them with specific locations in the edited document. These comments are later saved with a document.

File comparison

Hex Editor Neo provides two file comparison algorithms, which are fast and accurate and can be used to compare text and binary data files. The feature may also quickly and efficiently compare contents of two process snapshots.

Disassembler

Hex Editor Neo includes a disassembler module. The current implementation is capable of disassembling x86, x86/x64, MSIL, ARM, ARM64, MIPS, PowerPC, Sparc, SystemZ, XCore, 68K, TMS320C64x, 680X, MOS65XX and RISC-V architectures and instruction sets. Disassembler supports PE and ELF executables and automatically searches for symbol files and uses the information from them to increase the assembly output readability. The Disassembler View may be connected to ordinary editor window which provides you with another handy data viewing and manipulation tool. The disassembler module works with files and processes' memory and is even automatically updated when you modify the document.

Patch creation

Hex Editor Neo supports creation of a patch, which represents the changes made to a document. The patch is saved to the file in a compressed format. A patch may then be freely distributed and applied on the same or another computer. A patch may be packaged inside the executable file. A Patch API is also provided to allow programmatic patch installation.

Editor Window customization

All aspects of an editor window are fully customizable. Several predefined schemes are shipped with a product.

Displayed data may be grouped as bytes, words, double or quad words and represented as hexadecimal, decimal, octal, binary integer numbers as well as single or double precision floating-point numbers.

Document's data may be represented in one of the listed view types.

Fully customizable user interface

Hex Editor Neo's interface is fully customizable. You can customize toolbars, tool windows, keyboard shortcuts and editor windows. You even have an option of choosing one of three window switching mechanisms.

Connecting Editor Windows

You can connect two editor windows with each other. This synchronizes cursor movement in both windows, which is an extremely useful editing technique in some scenarios.

Two Built-In Explorer Windows

Hex Editor Neo hosts two Explorer windows. Use them to browse your file system and network neighborhood. All standard operations are supported, including Clipboard operations and Drag&Drop. Explorer windows are tightly integrated with an editor and Find in Files feature.

File attributes

The Attributes Tool Window displays current file's attributes and allows you to modify them. It also displays the total number of streams in a file, size of all streams and total size of the file, including its unnamed and named streams.

Pattern Coloring

Hex Editor Neo can be configured to automatically highlight given patterns in its editor windows. See the Pattern Coloring section for more information. Full support for ECMAScript-compatible regular expressions is provided.

Data Inspector

Data Inspector Tool Window interprets data under the cursor in several formats. In addition, it supports highlighting data boundaries and allows data modification.

Base Converter

Base Converter Tool Window provides tools to convert data from one format or encoding into another.

Bookmarks

Hex Editor Neo's bookmarks provide you with an extremely flexible way of document navigation. You can define any number of bookmarks groups, exchange data between a bookmarks group and selection, save and load bookmarks and so on. See the Bookmarks section for more information.

Structure Viewer

The powerful Structure Viewer feature allows you to define data structures and bind them to specific locations in edited files. Full support for Kaitai structures is also provided. See the Structure Viewer section for more information.

Statistics

Hex Editor Neo contains tools that can be used to quickly compute several file statistics. See the Statistics section for more information.

Advanced Copy & Export

Hex Editor Neo provides an advanced data conversion tool. Selected binary data from the editor may be processed in a number of formats to produce a text output to be placed into the Clipboard or written to text file. Data may be converted into character string (more than 150 different encodings are supported); packaged as a sequence of numbers (to be put into spreadsheet application, for example) or as programming language array declaration (7 popular programming languages supported). In addition, data may be encoded in Base64, UUencode, Quoted-Printable, Intel HEX or Motorola S-Records formats.

Checksum Calculation

Hex Editor Neo supports more than twenty checksum calculation algorithms, including MD5, SHA-1, CRC-16, CRC-32, FNV-1(a) and others. Calculation of CRC and FNV-1 algorithm with custom parameters are also provided.

Automatic updates

Hex Editor Neo can be configured to automatically check for released updates, display a list of changes, download and install updates (by your request).

Macros

Most application components expose programming interfaces, allowing them to be used by scripts running inside the Hex Editor Neo, allowing the user to record repetitive tasks as a macro and execute them at a later time.

Built-in Debugger

Built-in debugger simplifies the development of scripts, providing the step execution functionality, breakpoints, Watch Tool Window and Call Stack Tool Window.

File Document Scripting

Hex Editor Neo exposes its root functionality for external programs through automation-compatible ActiveX library. See the Scripting section for more information.

Native x64 platform support

Hex Editor Neo natively supports an x64 platform. A number of basic algorithms have been revised and optimized to use the powerful features available on this platform, including larger virtual address space, native wider registers and new processor commands.

Native support for high-DPI displays

Hex Editor Neo fully supports high-DPI displays. All Hex Editor Neo's user interface elements, including texts and icons, are properly scaled. As long as all graphics elements are rendered using vector technology, there are no artifacts on high-DPI displays. In addition, Hex Editor Neo allows you to change the size of icons on the main toolbar in a wide range.

Theming support

Colors of all application components, including the menu, toolbars, editor windows components are fully customizable and the user can create named themes. Hex Editor Neo provides several themes, including the “Automatic” one, which adopts to the current system settings, with full support for Windows Dark Mode.

Native support for Windows 10 and Windows 11 Dark Mode

Hex Editor Neo fully supports the dark mode introduced in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Support of Windows 11

Hex Editor Neo completely supports Windows 11 and its updated visual look, including rounded windows corners, Mica material and improved font rendering.

Support for Intel HEX and Motorola S files

File » Open » Open Hex… and Edit » Insert Hex… commands allow the user to convert Intel HEX and Motorola S files to binary form and insert them into the Hex Editor Neo. File » New » New Intel Hex and File » New » New Motorola S-Records commands allow the user to create empty HEX files. HEX files may also be directly opened in the editor.

Volume Navigator

Built-in support for parsing NTFS, FAT, ExFAT and CDFS volume structures, opening file and directory records and data locations. Ability to copy files, directories or entire volumes.

Language Packs

Hex Editor Neo's user interface provides full support for localization. Application automatically discovers published language packs and allows the user to download and install them.