PC > feather > sword

You have the default editor, word, notepad++, tons of sticky notes tools, pen and paper, an outright war between vim and emacs users and what feels like ten million other tools that allow you to take notes, copy links, keep track of stuff you need to do, etc.

What's your favorite text editor and what are you using it for?

Notepad++ is probably the top text editor I'd recommend for anybody to use in Windows. It has a list of many great features I could talk about, but I'll mention all that I like. For one, you have a choice between portable install and full install, it recognizes the coding syntax you're using when saving, and you can set it up to highlight stuff based on whatever language you may be programming in.

Also, let's be real; any text editor that has spelling check is useful and handy. :>

Can you really compare notepad with word processing software like MS Word and sticky notes?

I use Notepad for casual notes I need saved, sticky notes for things I need to get done, and Google Docs for writing documents (mostly for coursework). I also use Atom for casual coding; it's super customisable and has a lot of additional packages you can install, plus I find it much better looking than Notepad++.