Developer(s) | Microsoft |
---|---|
Initial release | August 24, 1995 |
Stable release | |
Repository | WordPad Sample: MFC WordPad Application (early version) |
Written in | C++ |
Operating system | Windows 95 and higher |
Platform | IA-32, x86-64, and ARM |
Predecessor | Microsoft Write |
Successor | Microsoft Word or Windows Notepad (suggested) |
Type | Word processor |
WordPad is a word processor included with Windows 95 and later. Similarly to its predecessor Microsoft Write, it is a basic word processor, positioned as more advanced than the Notepad text editor by supporting rich text editing, but with a subset of the functionality of Microsoft Word.
Earlier versions primarily supported a subset of the Rich Text Format (RTF, .rtf) and Microsoft Word 6.0 formats, although current versions are also capable of saving Office Open XML (OOXML, .docx) and OpenDocument Text (.odt) files.
In 2023, Microsoft announced that it plans to remove WordPad from future versions of Windows. In January 2024, WordPad was no longer auto-installed with the release of the Windows 11 Build 26020 and it was announced that it will not be available for reinstallation. Microsoft suggests Word or Notepad as a replacement. There will be no successor. [2] Microsoft announced it will finally remove WordPad in Windows 11 24H2. [3]
WordPad can format and print text, including font and bold, italic, colored, and centered text, and lacks functions such as a spell checker, thesaurus, and control of pagination. It does not support footnotes and endnotes. WordPad can read, render, and save many Rich Text Format (RTF) features that it cannot create, such as tables, strikeout, superscript, subscript, "extra" colors, text background colors, numbered lists, right and left indentation, quasi-hypertext and URL linking, and line-spacing greater than 1. It is simpler and faster than a richly-featured word processor, with low system resource use. Pasting into WordPad from an HTML document, such as a Web page or email, typically automatically converts most or all of it to RTF, depending partly on the Web browser from which the text is copied. WordPad is suited to taking notes; writing letters and stories; and use on various tablets, PCs, and smart phones. It is unsuitable for work that relies heavily on graphics and typesetting, such as most publishing-industry requirements for rendering final hard copy.
A character not on the keyboard can be entered into WordPad by typing its hexadecimal code point in Unicode followed by Alt+X. Likewise, the code point of a character from another application can be determined by copying it into WordPad followed by Alt+X.
WordPad does not support all the features defined in the RTF/Word 2007 specification.[ citation needed ] Earlier versions of WordPad also supported the "Word for Windows 6.0" format, which is forward compatible with the Microsoft Word format. [4]
In Windows 95, 98, and 2000, WordPad uses Microsoft's RichEdit control, versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0, respectively. [5] In Windows XP SP1 and later, [6] and Windows 7, it uses RichEdit 4.1. [7]
A similar word processor, also called WordPad and with simple functionality, is supplied by some vendors on a Windows CE pre-installation. [8] Its icon resembles an early Microsoft Word icon.
File format | Description |
---|---|
.doc | Microsoft Word Binary File Format; support for this format was removed in Windows Vista [4] |
.docx | Office Open XML Document formats; added in Windows 7 [9] |
.odt | OpenDocument text format; added in Windows 7 [9] [10] |
.rtf | Rich Text Format |
.txt | Text file |
.wri | Microsoft Write; disabled in Windows XP SP2 unless registry hack is used. [11] Support was removed in Vista. [12] Microsoft Word 2013 can open such files, but may lose formatting. [13] |
WordPad was introduced in Windows 95, replacing Microsoft Write, included with all previous versions of Windows (version 3.11 and earlier). The source code to WordPad was also distributed by Microsoft as a Microsoft Foundation Class Library sample application with MFC 3.2 and later, shortly before the release of Windows 95. It is still available for download from the MSDN website. [14]
The default font used in Windows 95 to Windows Vista was 10pt Arial; in Windows 7 it was changed to 11pt Calibri.
WordPad for Windows 2000/XP added full Unicode support, enabling WordPad to support multiple languages, but big endian UTF-16/UCS-2 is not supported. It can open Microsoft Word (versions 6.0–2003) files,[ citation needed ] although it opens newer versions of the .doc format with incorrect formatting. Also, unlike previous WordPad versions, it cannot save files in the .doc format (only .txt and .rtf). Files saved as Unicode text are encoded as UTF-16 LE. As a security measure Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later versions of Windows and its service packs reduced support for opening .WRI .
Windows 10 and later versions support voice typing. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2 and Windows Vista include speech recognition, allowing dictation into WordPad. These and later Windows versions implement the RichEdit control, allowing WordPad to support extensible third-party services built using the Text Services Framework (TSF), such as grammar and spellcheck. [15]
In Windows Vista support for reading Microsoft Word DOC files was removed because of the incorrect rendering and formatting problems, and because a Microsoft security bulletin reported a security vulnerability in opening Word files in WordPad. [4] For viewing older (Word 97–2003), and Office Open XML, documents, Microsoft recommends free-of-charge Microsoft Word Viewer. Native Office Open XML and ODF 1.1 support was implemented in the Windows 7 version of WordPad. [9] [16] [10]
In Windows 7 the program's user interface was updated to use a ribbon, similar to those in Microsoft Office. [17]
In January 2020, a Windows Insider build of Windows 10 tested an advertisement steering WordPad users to Office web apps. [18]
In September 2023, Microsoft announced that WordPad will be removed from "a future release of Windows", recommending Notepad and Microsoft Word. [19] [20]
In January 2024, WordPad was no longer auto-installed after a clean installation of the OS with the release of the Windows 11 Build 26020 Insider Preview’s Canary Channel. Furthermore, Microsoft stated that WordPad will be officially removed in future updates, and it will not be available for reinstallation. [21] [22]
Microsoft recommended using Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf, while Windows Notepad is suggested for plain text documents like .txt. [21] [22]
Microsoft Word is a word processor program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including: IBM PCs running DOS (1983), Apple Macintosh running the Classic Mac OS (1985), AT&T UNIX PC (1985), Atari ST (1988), OS/2 (1989), Microsoft Windows (1989), SCO Unix (1990), macOS (2001), Web browsers (2010), iOS (2014) and Android (2015).
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, Object Linking and Embedding data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand.
The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation from 1987 until 2008 for cross-platform document interchange with Microsoft products. Prior to 2008, Microsoft published updated specifications for RTF with major revisions of Microsoft Word and Office versions.
Windows Notepad is a simple text editor for Windows; it creates and edits plain text documents. First released in 1983 to commercialize the computer mouse in MS-DOS.
A document file format is a text or binary file format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers. There currently exist a multitude of incompatible document file formats.
File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file systems, as well as user interface elements such as the taskbar and desktop.
Microsoft Office XP is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001. A Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office v. X was released on November 19, 2001.
Pages is a word processor developed by Apple Inc. It is part of the iWork productivity suite and runs on the macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems. It is also available on iCloud on the web. The first version of Pages was released in February 2005. Pages is marketed by Apple as an easy-to-use application that allows users to quickly create documents on their devices. Many Apple-designed templates comprising different themes are included with Pages.
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking software developed by Microsoft. It is available as part of the Microsoft 365 suite and since 2014 has been free on all platforms outside the suite. OneNote is designed for free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration. It gathers users' notes, drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network.
Jarte is a word processor for users of Microsoft Windows, based on the WordPad engine, produced by Carolina Road Software. In terms of market appeal, Jarte is a lighter alternative to the feature laden Microsoft Word. The standard version of Jarte is offered free of charge, while a Jarte Plus, originally a paid enhanced version, has also been made free. The (formerly) purchasable version offers a variety of extra features, including Auto-Correct and Auto-Outline. In most other respects, Jarte Plus is the same as the freeware version. As of May 2020, the software's official website states that support is no longer available and there will be no further updates.
Rich Text Format Directory, also known as RTFD, or Rich Text Format with Attachments, is a primary document format of TextEdit, an application native to NeXTSTEP and macOS which has also been ported to other versions of Unix. The file format is based on the Rich Text Format, but can also include "attachments" such as images and animations.
Microsoft Write is a basic word processor included with Windows 1.0 and later, until Windows NT 3.51. Throughout its lifespan it was minimally updated, and is comparable to early versions of MacWrite. Early versions of Write only work with Write Document (.wri) files, which are a subset of the Rich Text Format (RTF). After Windows 3.0, Write became capable of reading and composing early Word Document (.doc) files. With Windows 3.1, Write became OLE capable. In Windows 95, Write was replaced with WordPad; attempting to open Write from the Windows folder will open WordPad instead.
Atlantis Word Processor is a stand-alone word processor for Microsoft Windows. It used to be known as "Atlantis Ocean Mind".
Microsoft Word Viewer is a discontinued freeware program for Microsoft Windows that can display and print Microsoft Word documents. Word Viewer allows text from a Word document to be copied into clipboard and pasted into a word processor. The last version was Word Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3 released in 2007.
Bean is a word processor for Mac OS X. Originally free and open source software Bean became closed source at version 3. However, the Bean executable is still distributed free of charge. According to its author, James Hoover, Bean is not meant to replace Microsoft Word, but to be a lean word processor that is beautiful and user friendly. Many of Bean's operations are carried out by the underlying Cocoa framework of Mac OS X. The name Bean is a play on Cocoa and Java, two popular programming frameworks.
The first version of Microsoft Word was developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox programmers hired by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1981. Both programmers worked on Xerox Bravo, the first WYSIWYG word processor. The first Word version, Word 1.0, was released in October 1983 for Xenix and MS-DOS; it was followed by four very similar versions that were not very successful. The first Windows version was released in 1989, with a slightly improved interface. When Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, Word became a huge commercial success. Word for Windows 1.0 was followed by Word 2.0 in 1991 and Word 6.0 in 1993. Then it was renamed to Word 95 and Word 97, Word 2000 and Word for Office XP. With the release of Word 2003, the numbering was again year-based. Since then, Windows versions include Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, Word 2016, and most recently, Word for Office 365.
Microsoft Office shared tools are software components that are included in all Microsoft Office products.