Microsoft announced today that it will deprecate WordPad with a future Windows update as it's no longer under active development, though the company did not specify the precise timing of this change.
Not everyone has the money for a copy of Word. There once was a time when free rich text editors were valuable. But at this point I agree it isn’t needed anymore. There are plenty of FOSS alternatives to word that hit that market. Microsoft has probably kept it around this long to prevent people from looking, but now they’ve put their bet on cloud services.
ScintillaTE is an old-ass one. Most people have never heard of it, and those that have have only heard of its variant, UniSciTE, which came bundled as the default text editor for Unity, something like 15 years ago.
Assuming you are talking about OpenOffice and LibreOffice, there’s also CollaboraOffice (although this may be counted as another half one, since it’s a online fork of LO) and OnlyOffice in the FOSS sphere. Probably more out there I’m not aware off.
Except it will nuke .docx formatting. Same in reverse.
I make templates for my clients and I always tell them not to open and save in any other client other than OpenOffice.
Even Libre does nuke some parts to some extend…
Every time I open anything open office in Word everything is scattered as is usally with the Word meme when moving a picture 2mm.
Libre aint much better. Also I prefer the OpenOffice design. Libre might be more modern and that’s usually what I prefer but I feel like OO is more efficient with it’s menu.
Can’t beat the menu ribbon from Word/Office though.
No as my work is using open office and Ihad some issues creating them with libre and then using it in OO.
Outaide of that we have M365 and have no need to go Libre as I can’t see me spending time to relearn it at work.
Sounds good though. If I am ever switching to FOSS in that department, I am willing to take a look.
I really like the form options and export to pdf of OO/Libre.
You’re assuming everyone is a power user. There will be thousands of people who won’t have an alternative and think that paying for word is the only option.
This is to fuck over the casual computer user who doesn’t know better or alternatives. Microsoft already knows that more informed users like us are a lost cause to upsell.
This is also why they tried that “malware” pop up to get people to go back to Edge. To once again, fuck over uninformed users.
It’s nowhere near as bloated as Word but you have many more options than Notepad when it comes to formatting and presentation. It’s actually impressive how much you can do within the limits of RTF.
Idea! A programming language where text formatting has syntactic meaning! Variable declarations must be italicized! Function calls underlined! And every line justified, of course.
Honestly, what is the point of Wordpad when you have Notepad and Word?
Not everyone has the money for a copy of Word. There once was a time when free rich text editors were valuable. But at this point I agree it isn’t needed anymore. There are plenty of FOSS alternatives to word that hit that market. Microsoft has probably kept it around this long to prevent people from looking, but now they’ve put their bet on cloud services.
Plenty? I know one and its fork. That’s about one and a half.
EDIT: Oh, you probably meant the rich text editors like Wordpad, not text processors like Word. My bad for misunderstanding.
ScintillaTE is an old-ass one. Most people have never heard of it, and those that have have only heard of its variant, UniSciTE, which came bundled as the default text editor for Unity, something like 15 years ago.
Assuming you are talking about OpenOffice and LibreOffice, there’s also CollaboraOffice (although this may be counted as another half one, since it’s a online fork of LO) and OnlyOffice in the FOSS sphere. Probably more out there I’m not aware off.
I didn’t know Joeffice had a fork. What’s it called?
Knowing the Internet, it would be Joemom, I presume? :)
I think AbiWord is still around, which used to be the FOSS simple, WordPad-like word processor of choice.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/free-office-online-for-the-web
Word is available for free now
Not all of us have Word, and Notepad doesn’t have rich text or the ability to open .doc files.
LibreOffice is free
Except it will nuke .docx formatting. Same in reverse.
I make templates for my clients and I always tell them not to open and save in any other client other than OpenOffice.
Even Libre does nuke some parts to some extend…
It’s not that bad and always improving. I inter operate the two every day.
OpenOffice is a dead project.
Every time I open anything open office in Word everything is scattered as is usally with the Word meme when moving a picture 2mm.
Libre aint much better. Also I prefer the OpenOffice design. Libre might be more modern and that’s usually what I prefer but I feel like OO is more efficient with it’s menu.
Can’t beat the menu ribbon from Word/Office though.
Have you tried the Libreoffice ribbon menu?
No as my work is using open office and Ihad some issues creating them with libre and then using it in OO.
Outaide of that we have M365 and have no need to go Libre as I can’t see me spending time to relearn it at work.
Sounds good though. If I am ever switching to FOSS in that department, I am willing to take a look.
I really like the form options and export to pdf of OO/Libre.
You’re assuming everyone is a power user. There will be thousands of people who won’t have an alternative and think that paying for word is the only option.
This is to fuck over the casual computer user who doesn’t know better or alternatives. Microsoft already knows that more informed users like us are a lost cause to upsell.
This is also why they tried that “malware” pop up to get people to go back to Edge. To once again, fuck over uninformed users.
Abiword is FOSS and would be my choice over Wordpad anyway.
WordPad (or at least uses to) opens much faster than word, but still has rich text. Perfect for some short notes.
Or eg to edit an ini file. They display as readable text in WordPad and not just a massive long string like in notepad.
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Also try editing unix or Mac line endings in notepad
Easy way to distribute rich text documents to users without them having to install anything.
It’s nowhere near as bloated as Word but you have many more options than Notepad when it comes to formatting and presentation. It’s actually impressive how much you can do within the limits of RTF.
I use notepad super often as a copy edit paste aid. It loads in a millisecond.
lightweight notes with margins
@jeffw @dantheclamman Wordpad is better for coding
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Idea! A programming language where text formatting has syntactic meaning! Variable declarations must be italicized! Function calls underlined! And every line justified, of course.
Yep, violence it is then. Just like the lines: justified.
If Chicken can be a language, that can be a language!
And I don’t mean the actually useful programming language. I mean the esolang one where the only valid character is Chicken.
Whatthefuck
Fair enough