Yazmak User Manual
March 12, 2026
Version 3.2
Jon Siragusa <jon@centaur.pw>
https://www.centaur.pw
About Yazmak
Yazmak is a customizable multi-tab Unicode text editor for Windows. The colors of all parts of the window can be modified along with the font used to display text, and these settings are automatically saved to a configuration file when modified. Tools for searching and manipulating text are included.
The files included in the ZIP archive are Yazmak.exe, Manual.html, and Default.ycf. It is recommended to copy these files to a new directory.
The ability to load user-defined settings relies on the presence of Default.ycf in the same directory as Yazmak.exe. If the file is not detected when the program is executed, a message will be displayed and the file will be created when an option is modified and/or the program is closed. The documentation file Manual.html must be in the program directory to be viewable from within Yazmak.
Version Information
Version 3.2 features:
Improved Undo and Redo.
Improved Replace, Remove, Reverse, Uppercase, and Lowercase.
Added End of Line options CRLF, LF, and CR.
Added Insert File to Tools menu.
Program Startup
Yazmak can be loaded in a blank state, load any number of files dropped onto the program icon or window, or be used to open files from the Open With menu item when right-clicked in Explorer. The program will first look for the file Default.ycf in the same directory it is running in and load using the settings contained therein. If the file is not found, a message will be displayed and the file will be created when an option is modified and/or the program is closed.
If a file is read-only, its name in the tab will be enclosed in angle brackets (<>) and its contents cannot be modified. Tools are disabled in read-only tabs.
User Interface
If a file is loaded, the full path to the file is displayed at the bottom of the window in the corresponding tab.
The toolbar contains buttons for most common activities: New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, Close Tab, Find, Undo, Redo, Select All, Cut, Copy, Paste, Font, and Color Options. This can be hidden by unchecking Show Toolbar in the View menu. This option is stored in the configuration file.
The File menu includes all available file operations: New, Open, Close Tab, Save, Save As, Print, Encoding, End of Line, Force Exit, and Exit. Open, Close, Force Exit, and Exit will prompt the user to save the text in the current tab if it has been edited. Files will be opened and saved using the selected encoding in the Encoding submenu and the selected end of line sequence in the End of Line submenu. The currently selected encoding is also visible on the toolbar. Supported encodings are UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32, Windows-1252, Latin-1, and ASCII. Supported end of lines are CRLF, LF, and CR.
The Print menu item will open a dialog box for the user to select a device and number of copies before the current text box is sent to the printer. The font used for printing is the same as the font used for the text box. Printed text will match the selected foreground color, and word wrap is always applied.
Right-clicking in the text box provides common editing operations: Undo, Redo, Select All, Cut, Copy, and Paste. These operations are also listed in the Edit menu, along with Find, Previous Tab, and Next Tab.
The Find window can be accessed in the Edit menu or by pressing Ctrl+F. Pressing the Enter key in the Find box will trigger the Find button. The search performed is optionally case-sensitive, and the number of results is displayed in the Find window. The Next button will iterate through each result. Only the selected tab can be searched; the selected tab can be changed while the Find window is open.
The Tools menu contains utilties to manipulate text in the current tab. Replace and Remove will open separate dialog boxes, and if any text is selected, it will automatically appear in the dialog. Both operations are case-sensitive. Reverse, Uppercase, and Lowercase will execute immediately on the selected text, or the entire text of the current tab if none is selected. Insert File will insert all text from the selected file at the caret position in the input box. If any text is selected, it will be overwritten with the text from the file.
All menu items have an associated keyboard shortcut underlined when the Alt key is pressed besides the shortcut keys listed in this file.
View Configuration
The View menu allows the user to modify the following attributes:
Font
Set the font of the text box, including size and style. This applies to all tabs.
Toggle Word Wrap
Toggle word wrap on or off for the current tab only; default state is on.
This option is not saved in the view configuration.
Always On Top
Keep Yazmak above all other windows when it loses focus; default state is off.
Show Toolbar
Show the toolbar; default state is on.
Text Color
Set the foreground color of the text box. This applies to all tabs.
Background Color
Set the background color of the text box. This applies to all tabs.
Window Color
Set the window color.
Tab Border Color
Set the color of the tab area surrounding the text box. This applies to all tabs.
Set Current as Default
Save the current view configuration as Default.ycf in the program directory, the file containing the view configuration loaded by default at program execution.
(This provides a means of saving manually; view configuration settings are always automatically saved when an option is changed.)
Export Settings
Open a dialog to save the current view configuration to a file.
Import Settings
Open a dialog to load settings from a view configuration file, typically with the YCF file extension.
Revert to Default Settings
Reset all current view settings to the built-in program default settings (distinct from the settings that may be listed in Default.ycf). This applies to all tabs.
View Configuration Files
All view settings which can be changed in Yazmak, including Always On Top status and window size, can be saved to a file. This can then be manually loaded by the user, or set as the default view configuration when loading Yazmak using the Set Current as Default option from the View menu. Changes made to relevant settings are automatically saved to Default.ycf.
A view configuration file is stored as plain text, each line containing both a variable name and its value separated by an equals sign (=).
Recognized variable names are: FontFamily, FontSize, FontStyle, AlwaysOnTop, ShowToolbar, TextColor, BackgroundColor, WindowColor, TabBorderColor, WindowWidth, WindowHeight, TextEncoding, and EndOfLine. Any lines beginning with an unknown variable name and/or missing an equals sign are ignored. When Yazmak saves a YCF file, the above order is used, but the variable names can be written in any order. Typically a YCF file consists of 13 lines followed by a blank line, but the files may be shorter or longer. If a variable assignment in a YCF file is missing, the corresponding built-in default setting is used instead. If a variable assignment occurs more than once, the last assignment is used.
TextColor, BackgroundColor, WindowColor, and TabBorderColor are 32-bit ARGB integers.
WindowWidth and WindowHeight are integers representing the window width and height in pixels.
TextEncoding may be one of the following: utf-8, utf-16, utf-32, windows-1252, iso-8859-1, us-ascii.
Example YCF File (Default.ycf):
FontFamily=Segoe UI
FontSize=9
FontStyle=Regular
AlwaysOnTop=False
ShowToolbar=True
TextColor=-16777216
BackgroundColor=-1
WindowColor=-986896
TabBorderColor=-1
WindowWidth=860
WindowHeight=470
TextEncoding=utf-8
EndOfLine=CRLF
Keyboard Shortcuts
File Operations
Ctrl+N | New |
Ctrl+O | Open |
Ctrl+Q | Close Tab |
Ctrl+S | Save |
Ctrl+P |
Editing Operations
Ctrl+F | Find |
Ctrl+Z | Undo |
Ctrl+Y | Redo |
Ctrl+A | Select All |
Ctrl+X | Cut |
Ctrl+C | Copy |
Ctrl+V | Paste |
Ctrl+H | Replace |
Ctrl+D | Remove |
Ctrl+R | Reverse |
Ctrl+U | Uppercase |
Ctrl+L | Lowercase |
Ctrl+I | Insert File |
Other Operations
F11 | Previous Tab |
F12 | Next Tab |
F1 | Documentation |
Copyright © Centaur, 2026. All Rights Reserved.