WordPad is the basic

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

that has been included with almost all versions of

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

from

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

onwards. It is more advanced than Windows Notepad, and simpler than

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software 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 pla ...

and

Microsoft Works Microsoft Works was a productivity software suite developed by Microsoft and sold from 1987 to 2009. Its core functionality included a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database management system. Later versions had a calendar application and a ...

(last updated in 2007). WordPad replaced Microsoft Write.

Features

WordPad can format and print text, including font and bold, italic, colored, and centered text, and lacks functions such as a

spell checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic ...

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionar ...

, and control of

pagination Pagination, also known as paging, is the process of dividing a document into discrete pages, either electronic pages or printed pages. In reference to books produced without a computer, pagination can mean the consecutive page numbering to ind ...

. It does not support footnotes and endnotes. WordPad can read, render, and save many

Rich Text Format ) As an example, the following RTF code would be rendered as follows: This is some bold text. Character encoding A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. T ...

(RTF) features that it cannot create, such as tables, strikeout,

superscript A subscript or superscript is a character (such as a number or letter) that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, whil ...

, subscript, "extra" colors, text background colors, numbered lists, right and left indentation, quasi-hypertext and URL linking, and line-spacing greater than 1. Among its advantages are low system-resource usage, simplicity, and speed. Pasting into WordPad from an HTML document, such as a Web page or email, typically automatically converts most or all of it to RTF (this depends 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 underpowered 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 character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

followed by . Likewise, the code point of a character from another application can be determined by

copying Copying is the duplication of information or an artifact based on an instance of that information or artifact, and not using the process that originally generated it. With analog forms of information, copying is only possible to a limited degree ...

it into Wordpad followed by . Although WordPad supports RTF, it does not support all the features defined in the RTF/Word 2007 specification. Previous versions of WordPad also supported the "Word for Windows 6.0" format, which is

forward compatible Forward compatibility or upward compatibility is a design characteristic that allows a system to accept input intended for a later version of itself. The concept can be applied to entire systems, electrical interfaces, telecommunication signals, ...

with the Microsoft Word format. In Windows 95, 98, and 2000, WordPad uses Microsoft's RichEdit control, versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0, respectively. In Windows XP SP1 and later, it uses RichEdit 4.1; the same is true in Windows 7. A similar word processor, also called WordPad, is supplied by some vendors on a

Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...

pre-installation. It has simple functionality like its desktop OS cousin. The icon resembles an early

icon.

History

WordPad was introduced in Windows 95, replacing Microsoft Write, which came 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 Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) is a C++ object-oriented library for developing desktop applications for Windows. MFC was introduced by Microsoft in 1992 and quickly gained widespread use. While Microsoft has introduced alternative ...

sample application with MFC 3.2 and later, shortly before the release of Windows 95. It is still available for download from the

MSDN Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

website. The default font used in Windows 95 to Windows Vista was Arial at 10pt; in Windows 7 it was changed to Calibri at 11pt. WordPad for

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

added full Unicode support, enabling WordPad to support multiple languages, but UTF-16/UCS-2 Big Endian is not supported. It can open

(versions 6.0–2003) files, 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 A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operat ...

.odt The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed w ...

, and

.rtf ) As an example, the following RTF code would be rendered as follows: This is some bold text. Character encoding A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. Th ...

). Files saved as Unicode text are encoded as UTF-16 LE. For the sake of security, Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later versions of Windows and its services packs reduced support for opening .WRI 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 Wr ....

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In ...

SP2 and

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

include speech recognition, allowing dictation into WordPad. In these and later Windows versions, the RichEdit control exists, making WordPad support extensible third-party services (such as grammar and spell check) built using the ''

Text Services Framework The Text Services Framework (TSF) is a COM framework and API in Windows XP and later Windows operating systems that supports advanced text input and text processing. The Language Bar is the core user interface for Text Services Framework. Over ...

'' (TSF). In

, 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. For viewing older (97–2003) as well as newer (

Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a ZIP (file format), zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized th ...

) documents, Microsoft recommends Word Viewer, which is available free. Native

and ODF 1.1 support was released in the

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

version of WordPad. In

, the program's user interface was updated to use a

ribbon A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mat ...

, similar to those in

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of 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 marketin ...

. In a 2020 insider build of

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

, WordPad is modified to include advertising notifications for the Office web apps as an alternative.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=May 2017 1995 software Windows components Windows word processors

Features

History

See also

References