Here are 5 free open source hex editor software for Windows. These hex editor software allow you to edit any binary file in an easy way. You can open any executable or a library file in these software and edit the contents in the form of hex. These software offer some basic and some power tools to edit a hex file and save the changes. You can use these software as you use the text editors. These software support most of the common editing tools like cut, copy, paste, undo-redo, find-replace, selecting specific sequence, measure the size of hex values and some more. All the software that I have listed below are open source and their source code is publicly available to download. You can fork the code and if you have relevant knowledge, then you can further extend the functionality of these software.
Editing the hex code can’t be done in normal ways. If you try to open any EXE, DLL, or any other binary file in a text editor, then you will see data which is in un-understandable form. And that is why to edit hex data you need some special text editors which can read the hex code perfectly and you can edit that. There are some hex viewer tools available, but they can’t edit hex files. And in the following list, I will talk about 5 such software that can do that and you will like them.
5 Free Open Source Hex Editor Software for Windows:
wxMEdit
wxMEdit is one of the best free open source hex editor software for Windows. This is a cross-platform software to edit hex files or hex data from a binary file. This hex editor comes with all the tools which you normally need to edit hex data. It supports three different modes namely text, column, and hex. And that is why you can even use it as a nice text editor software as well. You can open multiple binary files in it and work on them at the same time. This is because it has tabbed interface and you can even set different modes for different tabs.
wxMEdit supports all the basic editing features like cut, copy, paste, find, replace, opening files up to 32GB of size, support for multiple encodings, syntax highlighting, and support for regular expression for search. Also, the software supports the undo-redo options and runs in portable mode. Editing binary files in hex mode via this software is like go get a beer.
Open it after downloading and then load a binary file that you want to edit in it. It will show you the hex data and you can start editing it like you edit the normal text. You can select several bytes together and replace them with the target sequence of the bytes. Similarly, you can carry on and edit the whole file and the hex data in that. After editing the hex data you can save the data in the same file or you can create a new file.
Frhed
Frhed is a dedicated and an open source hex editor software for Windows. There are a lot of features in this software which makes the editing easy. This software has included a lot of tools for you to easily edit any binary file by opening that in hex mode. It supports the basic editing features along with some advanced tools that you can use. It lets you move bytes as whole, manipulate specific bits, select a block, toggle the binary mode, append data, add a complete file, and bookmarks. And apart from this, it also offers some customization features. If you don’t like the default color theme, then you can easily change that. It lets you change the foreground, background colors, selection color, etc.
Using this software to edit hex data from any binary file is very simple. Just open it after downloading it and then load a target file that you want to edit. It will show the hex data and you can start editing that. All the tools for editing the hex data are listed in the different menu of the software. If you want to merge another file in the same file that you are editing, then you can use File > Insert menu to do that. You can edit large size files in it and save the changes that you make.
Be.HexEditor
Be.HexEditor is another dedicated and open source hex editor software for you to use. You can open any binary file in it and edit that in hex view. It offers some basic tools that you can use for editing and save the changes in the file itself. In the basic operations, it supports simple cut, copy-paste like operations and the software keeps the history of the recent files. However, this software doesn’t come with other tools like text mode or advanced find and replace. Just open any binary file in it and then edit the hex data. After editing, you can either save the data in the same file or you can save the changes to a whole new file.
Just like the software above, you can use this tool in portable mode. Just grab the ZIP archive of the software and then open its EXE file. After opening the software, simply locate any EXE , DLL or any other binary file that you want to edit and start the editing process. You can easily edit the hex values and save the changes in the file itself. If you want, you can also change the encoding type from the toolbar of the software. And the software records the recent file history that you can access using the File menu of the software.
Delta Hexadecimal Editor
Delta Hexadecimal Editor is the last open source hex editor in my list that you can use. Just like the software I have listed, you can easily open and edit any binary file in hex mode using this software. It organizes the hex data on its interface in columns and you can edit that easily. You will find the basic as well as some advanced editing tools to manipulate hex data in this software. In this software, you can see the bytes equivalent to a specific value and also in other format like integer, word, long, float, etc. It even allows you to change the encoding of the data to see it in the desired format. And along with the ability to edit hex files, this tool offers some customization features to change the colors and fonts of the software.
Using this software to edit hexadecimal data is very simple. You only need to have JAVA runtime installed on your PC. After that, you can easily run this software and load any binary file in it. It will render the file in hex mode and you can edit the desired sequence of data in any way you like. You can use the tools like find and replace, cut, copy, paste and other measurement tools. After you have edited the file, you can either save the changes in the same file or you can opt to create a new.
Edit Hex Data in Notepad++
If you want to edit hex data in your favorite text editor, Notepad++, then I am happy to announce that you can do that. There is a free and open source plugin for NPP available that you can use. The plugin is known as NPP_HexEdit and adds the functionality to edit Hex data inside Notepad++ in an easy way. And the best part is that while editing the hex data in it, you can use other functions of NPP to assist you while you are editing the hexadecimal data.
Here are the steps to use NPP_HexEdit to edit hex data in Notepad++.
Step 1: Download the plugin from GitHub using this URL. After that, extract the ZIP file and place the HexEditor.dll in “C:\Program File(x86)\Notepad++\Plugins” folder. After that, restart Notepad++ if it was running earlier.
Step 2: Now, open any binary file in Notepad++ and then you will see the un-understandable data. To convert this to hex view, either press “Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H” or you can use the Plugins > Hex-Editor > View in Hex menu to do the same. The view of the data will change to the hex view and you can edit it in any way you want.
In this way, you can edit hex data in Notepad++ easily with the help of Npp_HexEdit. You can open any file in hex mode and edit the contents in hex like a pro. And the best part is that this method doesn’t require any third-party software to install in your PC.
Final Thoughts
These are the best free open source hex editor software that I could find. You can use all these software to easily edit hex data and save the changes. These software offer various amazing tools that you can use while you are editing the hexadecimal files. All these software are open source and you can find the source code on Sourceforge or on GitHub. So, if you’re looking for a free and open source hex editor software, then list will come in handy. Personally, I will recommend you to use wxMEdit, Be.HexEditor, and Frhed for editing hex data. And if you want to do the same in Notepad++, then you can install the NPP_HexEdit .
