this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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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

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[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 61 points 9 months ago (3 children)

LibreOffice is a good solution for anything one would use Office or WordPad for. Works on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

[–] Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world 36 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Libre Office is a good replacement for Office/Word, but it is much heavier than WordPad.

[–] udadu@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It even feels heavier than Office on windows (on linux it feels much better).

[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Likely feels that way because it has to load the Java runtime before launching.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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...

[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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 🤷

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[–] Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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 markdown on Obsidian:

[–] thejml@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] stockRot@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Are these available in Windows?

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[–] ashaman2007@lemm.ee 50 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Notepad++, is not really meant to be a replacement to WordPad.

[–] thehatfox@lemmy.world 43 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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?

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

Forgot Works ever existed! That takes me back. So glad they killed that mess.

[–] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Haha I never understood why they had two office suites.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 4 points 9 months ago

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.

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[–] littletranspunk@lemmus.org 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Really_long_toes@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I play modded skyrim (700+ mods) with my steam deck, runs great

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[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Reject modern GUI text editors, embrace Vim

[–] AbsurdityAccelerator@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago (5 children)

I've been using for the last 2 years becuase I don't know how to exit it.

[–] Mrduckrocks@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Hopefully you find a way out........please let me know if you have found a way out.

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[–] finestnothing@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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.)

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[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

It was "Write" before Win95.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 9 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] V0lD@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

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

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 points 9 months ago

Good.

Anybody who misses it should use LibreOffice instead.

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] dlok@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Believe it dealt in rich text format rtf by default, think it was too limited for docx but I'm open to being corrected

[–] lawrence@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

So the next Windows won't come with any text editor unless you pay extra for Word?

[–] kn33@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 11 points 9 months ago

Notepad with AI, so you can continue to not use Notepad, but with AI.

[–] awesomesauce309@midwest.social 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Modva@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

If these fuckers touch notepad I'll riot.

Actually that's not true, I'll just be quietly annoyed.

[–] Dagrothus@reddthat.com 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

And soon wordpad++?

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[–] kogasa@programming.dev 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 8 points 9 months ago

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. 😂

[–] guy_threepwood@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

AbiWord was probably the closest as a FLOSS equivalent?

[–] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Now what program on windows is going to be indestructible?

[–] holycrap@lemm.ee 20 points 9 months ago

Anything intended to serve ads or invade your privacy.

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