AhkWord 59

AhkWord is a word processor for Windows that AutoHotkey scripts can drive while you type. This is a work in progress.

Download and run

Nothing to install. Choose one of the two downloads below:

• AhkWord-59.zip (17 MB): everything AhkWord needs except .NET. If your computer hasn't got the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime, AhkWord offers on its first start to download it from Microsoft for itself only (about 70 MB, checked against Microsoft's checksums, into AhkWord's own folder: nothing is installed in Windows, and no administrator is needed), or to open Microsoft's page to install it for all of Windows.
• AhkWord-59-complete.zip (89 MB): the same with .NET 10 inside, for a computer that may not have it or isn't online. It asks nothing.

Then:

1. Unzip it anywhere you can write to: your Documents, a USB stick (not Program Files).
2. Double-click AhkWord.exe. Windows may say Windows protected your PC the first time, because AhkWord isn't signed: click More info, then Run anyway.

If Windows says "Smart App Control blocked an app that may be unsafe", there is no Run anyway: Smart App Control, on by default on some new Windows 11 PCs, blocks programs that aren't signed, and AhkWord.exe is AutoHotkey, which isn't. See Troubleshooting before you turn the setting off (on many versions of Windows 11 it can't be turned on again without resetting Windows). A signed AhkWord is next on the roadmap.

Just trying it out? Put an empty file named portable beside AhkWord.exe first. Everything AhkWord keeps (settings, recent files, templates, recovery copies) then stays in its own folder, and deleting the folder leaves no trace. Without it, settings are kept for your Windows user, shared by every copy of AhkWord.

AhkWord.exe is AutoHotkey v2.0.30, unchanged, under AhkWord's name, so you don't need AutoHotkey installed; it is under the GNU GPL v2, and its license and a link to its source come in the zip. The other parts' licenses are in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and licenses.

The documentation is at https://burque505.github.io/AhkWord/, and what is done and what comes next is in the roadmap.

New since AhkWord 57 (iterations 58 and 59)

• .NET 10.0.14, Microsoft's security update of 25 October 2026, is in the complete download.
• AhkWord keeps its own .NET up to date. If AhkWord downloaded .NET for itself (or you use the complete download), it looks at Microsoft's list of .NET releases once a week, in the background, and when there is a newer .NET it asks at the next start: Update now, Later, or Skip that version. The update is downloaded and checked against Microsoft's checksums, as the first download was, and put in place of the old one in one move (if another AhkWord window is open, it says to close it first, and nothing changes). Windows Update doesn't know a .NET in AhkWord's folder, so this is how it gets Microsoft's fixes. An empty file named no-update-check beside AhkWord.exe stops the weekly look; a .NET installed for all of Windows is left to Windows Update.
• PDF export and printing show their progress: Exporting as PDF: page 12 of 100 in the status bar, then Windows is finishing the file, and Esc stops them; a stopped export leaves no file.
• Export as PDF, or print to a PDF printer? The Pages guide now explains the difference: other PDF printers (CutePDF, PDF24 ...) often make smaller files, but only Export as PDF has bookmarks and links.

For the command palette and the fixes to Replace All and Change Case, see AhkWord 57; for event hooks, AhkWord 56.

Thanks to TheArkive's M-ArkDown, whose Markdown extensions AhkWord follows for list styles and picture sizes.