Microsoft is getting rid of WordPad after 28 years – the veteran editor has been present in the OS since Windows 95::Microsoft has begun getting rid of another veteran application in its proprietary operating system. The company has released a new test build of Windows 11
LibreOffice is a good solution for anything one would use Office or WordPad for. Works on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
Libre Office is a good replacement for Office/Word, but it is much heavier than WordPad.
It even feels heavier than Office on windows (on linux it feels much better).
Likely feels that way because it has to load the Java runtime before launching.
I believe, it only loads a Java runtime for the JDBC database driver in LibreOffice Base. At least, you can tell it in the settings to not use a Java runtime and that seems to not affect the remaining functionality…
Tbh I don’t use Windows or libre office so I’m just guessing. Back in the day I just know it took what felt like forever to load initially (and my pc fans took flight each time) but so did MS office 🤷
It even feels heavier than Office on windows (on linux it feels much better).
LibreOffice is also available as a Flatpak:
Outside of that. And keeping in mind WordPad was a standalone rich text editor:
Kate is pretty swell too:
Or slim down to Kwrite:
I myself am also mostly writing in
markdownon Obsidian:Markdown has definitely replaced most of what I used wordpad for. Obsidian is nice, but I’ll also write markdown in vscode or even just vim. It all works and even when it’s not interpreted, it still looks readable. Plus since it’s all just text, easily converted, and widely supported, I don’t have to worry about format deprecation.
Are these available in Windows?
Seems like only Kate and LibreOffice
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Notepad++ 👍
Notepad++, is not really meant to be a replacement to WordPad.
Seems kinda sad. I doubt it’s a program many people use (or even know of) these days, but there is an odd charm to super simple rich text editors like WordPad and TextEdit in macOS.
I suppose AbiWord sorta fills that niche as a replacement.
Anyone remember Microsoft Office’s weird cousin, Works?
Forgot Works ever existed! That takes me back. So glad they killed that mess.
Haha I never understood why they had two office suites.
I’m trying to use AbiWord when possible, but since it supports DOCX, I use it for DOCX, and a heavy DOCX file opened in AbiWord means lots of CPU usage all the time it’s opened, while LibreOffice doesn’t have that problem.
Maybe Ted fits more as a WordPad replacement.
I use textedit in plain text mode daily
Oh well, Windows has become that one OS I use for one or two things that I complain every time I have to spin up my VM to use.
I only use it to play games, mainly a heavily modded Skyrim. It’s just too much of a pain in the ass to get MO2 to launch the Linux version of Steam so that I can use Proton to launch SKSE. I finally managed to get it to work once and was getting at 15 FPS on my RTX 3070.
I play modded skyrim (700+ mods) with my steam deck, runs great
I’m gonna guess you’re not using MO2 though, that’s the biggest headache, along with using tools like Nemesis, Xedit, Synthesis and Dyndolod.
I love the steam deck, but 25FPS isn’t great
It’s more than playable imo, tiny screen, sitting on the couch… the switch can’t even achieve a solid 30 fps on exclusive titles… I’ve played games with worse framerates on the deck
700 mods Skyrim plays worse than fuckin TotK on a switch
I say this as a person who only played TotK on a computer.
It was “Write” before Win95.
WordPad was in that weird area between Notepad and Word (oh I get it, WordPad). I nevel felt like there was much use for it.
In the 90s, there was no LibreOffice/OpenOffice, and Word was expensive. It did rich text WYSIWYG formatting for free. Was never great, but it was functional.
Not much point to it anymore, though.
It was useful back in Windows 98 when Notepad wouldn’t open anything bigger than 64KB.
That’s about the last time I used it.
For all intents and purposes it was free word
I haven’t really used word in over half a decade since TeX beats it in every conceivable way.
Wordpad was useful in the sparse few cases where I was forced to open a .doc or .docx and couldn’t be arsed to upload the file to Google docs
I guess it will be missed for that
Reject modern GUI text editors, embrace Vim
I’ve been using for the last 2 years becuase I don’t know how to exit it.
Hopefully you find a way out…please let me know if you have found a way out.
:wq The sacred knowledge
You mean "Esc Esc Del Esc Ctrl-C Ctrl-C Ctrl-X Ctrl-Q Esc Esc F11 Ctrl-Z Del Del Del Del F11 F12 F2 Backspace Esc Esc fn0wosnfosjvopakgnapociwbsopalfnnqod9gjbqnspfojwbab9fiehjr "
Nah that’s emacs
I legitimately loled, we’ve all been there.
Doom emacs is superior
Emacs is a fine operating system, lacking only a good text editor.
Edit: For the record, I code in emacs every day at work. (Please send help.)
Oh I definitely agree - and highly recommend checking out doom emacs to solve that. It’s emacs configured to use vim keybinds instead (and other QOL features). It adds a bit less than 200 add-ons by default, but they’re only loaded as needed so startup time is still <1 second
Eh, I’ve got so many keybindings and scripts and changes already and I actually quite like my setup. Not looking to learn vim keybindings beyond the ones I know (essentially how to close vim 😁).
<ESC> :q!
I just use libreoffice or vim for general text stuff I haven’t used WordPad in 28 years. Was it ever able to edit Ms word documents? I feel like there was a reason I didn’t use it.
Believe it dealt in rich text format rtf by default, think it was too limited for docx but I’m open to being corrected
Good.
Anybody who misses it should use LibreOffice instead.
If these fuckers touch notepad I’ll riot.
Actually that’s not true, I’ll just be quietly annoyed.
Just use notepad++?
And soon wordpad++?
Team Sublime!
They’ve already touched it. It has a new UI, new features, and has crashed on me multiple times. They’re about to add AI shit to it too.
I’ve had no issues. I don’t mind the tabs thing, because I’m the kinda buffoon who uses notepad like a notepad. Sometimes I close it and intentionally don’t save only to later be like shit, wish I didn’t do that, and now it’s like I didn’t!
When I inevitably have issues though I will join you in complaining, because why do they always have to mess with shit!
I use VSCode + Markdown for an actual notepad. The only thing I ever want from Notepad is to open a file as plain text, instantly, and let me read and search through the text, and maybe make a modification and save it. If I’m gonna be looking at the contents for more than 5 seconds it’s already a good idea to be using a proper text editor.
if i had to use windows it’d be debloated 10
11 sucks
but linux is better than both
Why are you getting downvoted?
They already did. They added tabs to it, which honestly was a pleasant surprise but loooooong overdue. Apps like Notepad++ had stolen the reason for Notepad to exist long ago.
So the next Windows won’t come with any text editor unless you pay extra for Word?
It’ll have notepad
Notepad with AI, so you can continue to not use Notepad, but with AI.
There’s still notepad, but Windows 11 office suite is already subscription only. They’re only taking wordpad out so people who don’t know better are pushed to buy in to the racket.
Don’t worry lads, there’ll be several open source clones of this within weeks all with various missing functionality. You won’t have to be without for long. 😂
AbiWord was probably the closest as a FLOSS equivalent?
Isn’t that dead too?
Sadly yeah. Hence “was” ☹️
Now what program on windows is going to be indestructible?
Anything intended to serve ads or invade your privacy.
Probably regedit.exe
Didn’t Windows for Workgroups (3.12) also have WordPad? I remember something that was more complex than Notepad being released with pre-95 Windows.
3.11 (not 3.12, which was never a thing) apparently came with Microsoft Write.
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
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 (.
