This is very upsetting to me--more as a point of principle than in fact--but I appreciate that it doesn't bother younger generations at all. I just had a small argument with my 11 year old about how not-a-big-deal-who-cares this is, and it basically ended with us agreeing to disagree since it'll be his problem and his kids' problem.
And the problem is normalizing the notion that an OS doesn't need to include a non-subscription word processor. The entire point of this move is to shift the OS Overton Window in favor of consumers accepting and expecting that features like word processors, spreadsheets, etc., should be installed separately and paid for on a subscription basis despite previous iterations of the same software being feature complete on install and purchased at a set, non-recurring fee.
WordPad hasn't been anybody's first choice for a word processor in years, but it was included with Windows and did the bare minimum for unsophisticated users. Now we're entering an era in which those users will as a matter of course buy off-the-shelf computers that come pre-installed without WordPad, but rather with a trial of Office Fuck-You-Pay-Me Edition. Those users may well discover that after their first six months with their new computer (that has made Microsoft more money selling their data than they paid for it), they suddenly get a pop-up informing them that their trial is up and MS wants $99.99 to release the documents they're holding hostage.
It's a step backwards for consumers in general, so even for the sophisticated of us who are least likely to be personally affected by this change, there's definitely cause for alarm.
I get where you're coming from but I think you're overstating the impact in this day and age. If this had been 1995 it'd be a big deal. Now it's rediculously easy to install any alternative you like for free.
Libre Office is an entire free fully features office suite.
I'm less bothered about removing WordPad than I am about Microsoft advertising and pre-installing it's products in Windows - they force Edge on people, they push OneDrive and preinstall a preview of Office. That's the real problem - not losing WordPad.
At one point Anti-Trust / Anti-monopoly regulators globally punished Microsoft for pushing Internet Explorer to consumers and for a long time in Europe had to offer a choice of Browsers to download on new Windows installs. Now it's allowed to get away with abusing it's dominant position to force it's products on consumers.
Does liber office make .docx files and export to pdf?
Yes.
Does liber office make .docx files and export to pdf?
It does. It's fine as a replacement for Word, but no one has an answer for Excel. LibreOffice Calc is fine for a basic spreadsheet, but Excel is in a completely different universe than Calc with anything beyond that.
To be fair though, Excel is in a completely different universe than literally any other competing product.
I think calc is fine for a lot of use cases. I use it all the time. It is different though.
For advanced stuff I’d rather use Python anyway to be honest.
Do you know how both of those compare with Google Sheets?
Sheets is capable enough for the average person but a business is always going to want to use Excel because it's the industry standard.
I can't remember the last time I actually needed a spreadsheet for anything other than looking at a bunch of tabular data, but I'm a programmer so I'm not the standard spreadsheet user.
I'm a programmer so I'm not the standard spreadsheet user.
But then what do you use for database???
But then what do you use for database???
Probably a database.
Lol exactly
JSON files that get committed to a git repo, obviously. They're in a private repository in GitHub so that takes care of security and resiliency, two birds with one stone.
At first I was certain this was going to be sarcasm.
If you are an accountant, then it’s your beast of burden.
Accountant here. I prefer libreoffice calc.
Gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks for your reply!
Nothing compares to excel. There are spreadsheets, and there is excel. The world runs on excel, and for a damn good reason. Also, excel runs the world, literally.
So you’re telling me that Excel is very good at stuff?
I built a new PC two months ago and it's the first time I didn't get Office. Libre Office has everything I need and it's free.
I've wondered about free suites like these - how do they make money, do you know?
They don’t. Libre Office is maintained by a non-profit called The Document Foundation. They’re funded entirely by donations. I think they make enough to have some full time employees.
A lot of open source software is created by individuals or non-profits. The Mozilla foundation makes Firefox, for instance. They make money through donations and also Google pays them a ton of money to be the default search engine.
There are for profit companies that make or contribute to open source software. Such as Red Hat. They tend to make money by selling support for the software.
I don't think they make money. It's an open source project where people donate their time as far as I know.
EDIT: I forgot to mention you can donate to the project. Something has to pay for web hosting, I guess.
A bit of donations, a bit of unpaid people contributing just to help others.
I'd like to normalize the notion that an OS shouldn't include any application software except for a browser you can use to install other things. Let people pick what they want to use and install it themselves.
Yeah, just download LibreOffice or use a free service like Google Docs.
You can even use Microsoft Word for free online.
The whole argument that "a subscription service becomes necessary" is nonsense.
Wasn't there an anti trust or monopoly suite against Microsoft for bundled IE back in the day? Funny how times change, though I agree it's not easy to get a preferred browser without one. Mean it never was overly simple but they were on so many CDs mailed out back then. Think it has to do with some IE and Windows integration too so not just cause they bundled it.
The problem with IE4 is that it was designed in such a way that it was deeply integrated into the operating system, such that it could not be uninstalled.
It's completely reasonable now to ship an operating system without a browser, as long as there's some kind of "app store" or "package manager" through which a user can install whatever browser they want (provided it's available through said store, of course).
Better yet, the OS should just include a desktop environment with simple utilities and a package manager to install the applications you want. It will make users less likely to run into malware while searching for the programs in the web
I think a file manager, text editor and command prompt are pretty essential too. And when you've added those, where exactly is the limit where it becomes "application software"?
I don't have an answer for that, but I know Wordpad is definitely not essential and I doubt anyone would use it if it didn't come with Windows
Tbh I use Notepad way more than anything for note making.
If it needs to be formatted, OneNote is free to use and can be saved in any cloud (if there is a shortcut like OneDrive or Dropbox in the Windows explorer)
If it needs to be free and not very sophisticated, I'd look around for a markdown based editor.
If all of that fails, I will use Word.
Never used Wordpad in 15 years (of 24 years of existence) except while trying to open word but Windows suggesting Wordpad first.
i use wordpad a lot for viewing docs (loads faster, uncluttered ui). occasionally writing them... and more than once instead of notepad for a text file (on a system without a notepad alternative available) because i needed more features.
i have a few clients that use wordpad as their 'word processor', lack of spelling check be damned.
microsoft must have run out of excuses for specifically not including one in it, seeing how recent windows has spell check baked-in to the os itself. so instead of losing a few dozen sales of office home and student or 365 by making wordpad just a little bit better for those who use it, they're gonna be the assholes and take it out completely and push everyone to the damn cloud app or a 365 sub. fk 'em.
Google Docs is free and has basically become the standard word processor for the “unsophisticated users” you’re worried about. It essentially comes with your OS because you only need a browser to use it.
I think your kid and his children will survive.
Making things in Google Docs is fine, but last I checked Google Docs just sucked at opening anything that wasn't already a GDoc. LibreOffice Writer sometimes has formatting errors opening Word Docs, but it does a miles better job than Google Docs.
Also, I hate how normalized everything using the cloud (aka "Someone Else's Hard Drive") for no reason is.
it still has strings attached, its not truly "free". heck, google won't let it be
word pad had no ties to Microsoft once it was given to you. everything else but LibreOffice and some others still have its creator's ties.
Likely scenario, honestly. I really don't worry about it, though. Not to brag, but it doesn't bother me. Understand, there is a solution. X marks the spot.
(Yeah, I know, that's kind of stupid. But it seemed funny in my head.)
It’s too bad Linux isn’t more normalized. For those very simple users (and for the more sophisticated) Linux is probably much better than Windows at this point.
No ads, free software, updates can be very simple and stable, less security issues.
Then they ask their grandson or work it dept what they should do and both will answer libre office is free
I disagree. I don't think a rich text editor should be part of the OS as it's not there to operate the computer. An OS should be the tools to run applications and manage your computer. There are a bunch of apps which are so small that it makes sense to include them - like a calculator and text editor, but everything else should be optional.
There should be an OS out there for you which doesn't come with a rich text editor. [If there is ever a time to mention GNU+Linux in a MS thread then now is that time.] For most people however, not including it is a needless barrier to entry.
This is very upsetting to me–more as a point of principle than in fact–but I appreciate that it doesn’t bother younger generations at all.
I am in a support group with over 100 senior citizens in it. Getting a file with a *.rtf extension used to be a thing, but it hasn't been a thing in years. I do get *.doc and *.docx files so they're probably getting lured into Office like you said even before Wordpad is removed.
WordPad was a fast and efficient way to view doc files without loading into LibreOffice or any other office suite, or to make rich text documents quickly. But alas, we have to go to the cloud for our notes now...
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.
There are plenty of FOSS alternatives to word that hit that market.
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.
Not all of us have Word, and Notepad doesn’t have rich text or the ability to open .doc files.
LibreOffice is free
And huge. And bloated, if you only need simple functionality.
Abiword is pretty nice and not too bloated from what I remember
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...
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.
Honestly I'm not too bummed, especially with open-source solutions like Notepad++, but it's the end of an era! Also, Word is paid, and so Windows not having a built in free RTF editor is notable
Windows not having a built in free RTF editor is notable
Yeah, that is a bit odd, but then again when's the last time you've seen something other than a cut-rate eBook in RTF? Everything is either some variant of plain text or a DOC file these days.
Plus, it's rare that you ever need to edit RTF files. Read, sure, but that could be handled by Word Viewer, which is free.
EDIT: Right, they're discontinuing the viewers, but apparently they have a cloud-based online thing that's free? Sucks if you live somewhere with crap internet I guess.
A lot of ebooks seem to be more epub or pdf these days. RTF isn't used quite so much.
RTF is a rarity these days since basically every phone, tablet, and other handheld device can handle either PDFs or HTML (and ePub is basically just a ZIP file with HTML in a specific naming scheme and structure). Back in the day though you'd find RTFs more often for use in budget/jury-rigged eReader options. It's much easier to parse, if nothing else.
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.
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 love Clippy. It's cool that he can answer all kinds of questions and stuff like that, but I only got him to be a little desktop companion. I wish he had a little more personality to him. His jokes are dry and he's always saying that he's my Windows assistant. His "conversations" can be cute at times, I just wish he wasn't so relentless in his pursuit to assist. I don't really need help from Clippy, I never did. I need Clippy's companionship.
Only thing I used it for was when older versions of Notepad couldn't handle larger text files. Now it can. So, no loss to me. Notepad going away would suck, that does at least get occasional use although Notepad++ is far superior.
Notepad++ can't handle as big files for some reason. At work we have files that can reach 5-600 MB, and NP++ can't always open those, but notepad handles then with no problem.
I had the same problem but noticed that I was using the 32 bit version of notepad++, installed the 64 bits instead and had no problems with large files
That might actually be something to bring up with IT...
Tbf npp has much more functionality than regular notepad.
Just the syntax highlighting alone probably dramatically lowers the amount of text it can render.
I've opened 4GB files with notepad++ before. Sure, it takes several minutes (I basically have to go away and do something else, or leave it loading in the background) but it gets there, eventually.
NP++ straight up tells us it's too big to be opened...
With bigger files or searching in files where there's a lot of data I found sublimetext to be much more efficient (than n++)
Genuinely curious—why would someone choose to use notepad++ over something like VSCode in 2023?
I can't say I've used n++ in over a decade when I switched to sublime around 2010, moved again to VSCode about 5 years ago
VSCode uses electron so it's not exactly a lightweight text editor, way overkill if you just want to read a simple .txt. Add on the fact if you got way too many extension, it will be even heavier.
Slightly annoyed about this, as I do use Wordpad (it's lightweight and useful for quick notes that I want to mark up with bold and italic). I don't always want to watch Word or Libreoffice load for twenty to thirty seconds.
Shitty decision, happy to be Wordpad's one fan.
There's dozens of us!
Yeah, when I want to just jot some words down quick in Windows, Wordpad has always been my go-to, but main thing for me is opening .txt files. Maybe I'm dumb and there's some Notepad default layout thing I never bothered figuring out, but I don't want to have to scroll right to read long lines of text.
What about Notepad? I use it for the same quick notes
Doesn't have formatting, unless Notepad has got really adventurous at some point in the last decade or two.
Same boat. I have been using WordPad and .rtf format for all my notes for maybe 15 years.
I've been meaning to jump to a markdown editor for a long time, and after this news I've already started using MarkText. I probably should have jumped ship a long time ago, but at least I'm on the path now.
I will have to figure out a neat way to convert my .rtf notes to .md. Update: I've found Pandoc, it's a command line tool for which I've made a script for converting my .rtf files to .md.
This place really hates MS. Can't believe some of the comments here.
Yeah it's really strange. I'm not a fan of MS by any means, but I've found myself making so many pro-MS comments on Lemmy just because the userbase leans so heavily pro-Linux and anti-MS.
Lemmy and other Fediverse sites tend to attract folks who prefer FOSS. Early Reddit was that way too!
It's not just preferring FOSS, though – it's as if people have to publicly perform their hatred of Microsoft.
It shouldn’t be that strange. Linux nerds are a huge Lemmy demographic.
Much more up on new technology, FOSS, and privacy issues etc. than the general population. Good fit for Lemmy.
And then getting downvoted by people who just disagree with your opinion. I'm one of the Reddit refugees so I don't know if we brought that with us or Lemmy was like that before but it's sad to see.
That's why downvote buttons exist? If you want to express your opinion on the internet, go ahead, but you should be prepared for the possibility that it might not be a popular opinion.
Downvote buttons are meant to be used for comments that don't contribute to the discussion or are plainly completely wrong, not for opinions you disagree with. But most people can't stand being disagreed with on things they feel passionately about, so they will still downvote where they merely disagree.
My take: Upvote the stuff other people should see. Downvote the stuff that should have never been here at all. You don't have to agree or disagree, you can even have no opinion. But if you find it worthwhile to others, upvote it. Detrimental, downvote it.
MS has a history which informs what their fututre actions are likely to be. If you can't believe the comments here perhaps you have not heard that history. If you have then consider that lemmy is free software and so you're more likely to find that way of thinking here.
Not to mention the amount of people who think this is about notepad.
I mean, not many people are in the loving Microsoft camp. Tolerate maybe.
A broken clock can be right twice a day. Unless someone keeps playing with the dials.
As a former user, and an hardcore fanboy, I loved MS and Windows. They made computers accessible for the general public. The OS and the office suite were great. The sheer amount of available software for it was phenomenal. They even decided to publish games, which meant quality!
Until they decided to break things.
XP was a great OS, Vista wasn't. Then 7 was back to being good just for 8 to be not as good. Then Cortana and Edge and the push for cloud computing.
What worked, worked well and was actually useful was changed, removed, phased out...
GNU/Linux is not without its dramas and difficulties but we can expect a good degree of continuity between each version of a software (I'm looking a you, Gnome!). And if we're that hell bent on having that specific specific piece of software or OS setup, well, we can.
MS by contrast just chucks the good things out and doesn't even let them floating around as something users may add to their system.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
PowerToys is very much live and available for download. I use it daily.
PowerToys is alive and well, and updated regularly. More features now too.
Unpopular opinion: Vista was actually a good step forward, but the hardware of the time wasn't up for the task which made it run like dogshit, and hence the public perception. It brought in better memory management, and UAC for better security among other things.
What worked, worked well and was actually useful was changed, removed, phased out...
MS by contrast just chucks the good things out and doesn't even let them floating around as something users may add to their system.
Cortana, widely hated and unused, was phased out for one... wordpad being gone is so insignificant, it wasn't even very good at its primary task.
They often replace things, e.g. the Photos app had a Video editor built in but now that's a separate and better app. I think they're doing a pretty good job of their software range actually.
What bugs me about Windows is actually their striving so much for backwards compatibility that there's at least 6 ways to edit things or data and they're all still officially supported. It's a bit bloaty and no Devs have any consensus.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
The newer version is installed on my Windows 11 and is under active development.
Vista was a good idea and good start, but 7 was the finished product that needed shipped. Just like XP was the finished version of 2000, though 2000 wasn't bad, but XP was just better, more optimized, and yes hardware caught up also. 98, was 95 but better, fixed and polished. 10 was windows 8 better, fixed and polished, and they dumped that stupid fucking tablet interface that everyone hated, (and whoever put that interface in server 2012 needs to be beaten with a sand filled wiffle ball bat)
Backwards compatibility is why windows dominates the market. Without that, it wouldn't have taken over the business world. Legacy code is what makes the business world operate. Yes it hold back windows for some growth, but deprecating that would wreck so many businesses, especially small ones.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
That name rings a bell. My username is from "Tweak Tools 95", which I think was a part of that or something.
Edit: Also Windows has a long history of alternating good and bad versions.
98 - good
ME - bad
XP - good
Vista - bad
7 - good
8 - bad
10 - good
11 - bad
In theory, the next version of Windows should be fairly good, or at least an improvement on 11. However I worry that MS will buck the trend now - particularly as they've pivoted away from software sales to software as a service (with additional data collection because fuck paying users).
Unpopular opinion: Win 11 works well for me, and is visually better than Win 10. Although it's a fairly recent PC. Although if they keep pushing more telemetry and ads, I'm moving over to Ubuntu.
Its the small things on Windows 11 for me. Like the "more options" section on the right click.. that must have been added just to annoy people. It's where all the good options are.
I get that people here hate MS, but defending Wordpad is a bonkers hill to die on.
It's complete wank.
It's the free (as in beer) program that comes with windows to open doc and rtf files and put together fine enough documents. Dropping it is Microsoft telling users unwilling to pay for word without the technical knowhow to get LibreOffice or Abiword going to get fucked. Its anti consumer no matter which way you slice it.
I don't think so.
My in laws are very technologically illiterate. I bet they have never opened word pad except accidentally... but I guarantee they know what "Word" is and think "word pad" is just some nerdy tech person word for the software they know.
I bet the number of people who both rely on word pad and who don't know about any other free alternatives is so very low.
It's have to actually launch it to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you can open them in Edge these days, along with all the other office documents.
As for creating documents, your average social media comment editor has more features than Wordpad. Given that Chrome is still the most popular browser on Windows by some way, I think the average Windows user can download programs just fine. OpenOffice is even on the MS Store for those stuck on Windows S edition.
My basic text editor on Winows somehow broke and crashes with a wired memory error so I WordPad is my basic text editor
I don't like Apple but they ship their devices with everything a basic user needs and if a high quality, completely for free. When you get a MacBook you don't need to worry about finding and downloading an external app for almost anything - from viewing any kind of file, to basic photo and video editing, to document processing, etc. And they don't track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
It's definitely not for free. You can buy several Windows laptops and Office licenses for a single Mac laptop.
While that's true, most windows laptops of similar build quality and form factor are around the same price. Windows also advertises to you and installs unwanted apps on your computer without modifications. Of course, you could always install Linux.
None that offer similar quality across the board in display, speakers, input devices, performance, battery life. Trust me I've looked. Alternative laptops aren't really any cheaper any more unless you get something of significantly lesser quality, in which case there's nothing surprising about that - something worse is cheaper.
Isn’t apple consistently removing ports on their newer products? I thought that was a common complaint.
It’s genuinely been ages since i’ve heard anyone try to defend the pricing of apple products for anything other than luxury purchases or rich people products. They’re vastly overpriced and underpowered, and they’re locked into the apple ecosystem. If you aren’t buying apple products for everything, suddenly a lot of shit doesn’t “just work” anymore lmao
" And they don't track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products."
LOL ok
Except that businesses always find a way to lock themselves (and you) with Office, so regardless of all the chimes and stuff that come standard with your Mac you will still have to install Word because some exec somewhere might want to make some comments in your document in the form of highlighted, inline text instead of actual side comments.
When you get a MacBook you don't need to worry about finding and downloading an external app for almost anything
I don't think that's really a fair complaint against Windows when Microsoft got sued for doing exactly that.
And they don’t track every minute thing you do
You sure about that? I just bought my mom a new iPad Air yesterday and the setup process was maddeningly privacy invading. Name, address, and phone number just to install anything from the Apple store. Both me and my mom, who's not tech savvy at all, thought it was crazy the amount of info we had to put in just to get a usable device.
and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
There was also so many preloaded garbage apps installed by default. Why are apps like Measure there? Yes when I want to measure something...I reach for an iPad...instead of...you know...a tape measure... Just because they're first party apps doesn't make this okay. Also, Apple's ecosystem is famous for vendor lock-in.
They may not be as blatant about it as Google is, but they're every bit as bad tbh.
All well and good, but that still does not make a Macbook value for money.
Lol overpriced locked down PoS os
eh I use Linux on my desktop but macOS is a nicely polished UNIX operating system. It's only locked down for average users, you can usually get away with a quick sudo or worst-case going into single user mode and disabling some system protections.
I definitely prefer using *nix operating systems, and macOS gives me that for portable computing. I'm still more productive on Linux, but it's not too far apart.
This is how I feel too. Rather a locked-down polished UNIX system than Windows.
This is tru, however MacOS is still a lesser version of linux with a fancy skin. You have to get third party apps to support ntfs formatted drives.
MacOS has nothing to do with Linux, it's a bsd variant.
Honestly, this blows. WordPad fills a niche between a full blown text editor and notepad. Most of my random daily notes use WordPad still when not OneNote.
Notepad++ was a good alternative when I was running Windows
As long as they leave Notepad. I use it almost daily.
I used it for the past 3 month at work writing in Markdown, just bd aide of how fast and responsive it was to open and close different papers
I feel like even Microsoft would not be crazy enough to remove notepad.
"Active development"? What the fuck do they think needed to be done with txt? More ads?
They do realize that there are a lot of txt looker aters right? This is not even a fight, its a "well anyway" sort of thing.
Wordpad is for looking at and editing rich text, not txt files. It's not a big deal because no one uses rtf.
Annoyingly enough, the other day got the first RTF file I've gotten in probably 20 years. To make matters worse, it was JSON that the customer decided should be sent as an RTF attachment to an email.
Of course I run Linux on my work computer so I didn't have wordpad anyway. I had to use a cli utility to convert it to text, then use vscode to properly format it, since he conversion removed all the indentation/spacing.
If I never see another RTF file again, it'll be too soon.
Word is not included with Windows apprently so Wordpad is useful at work when I don't have time to install LibreOffice.
Wordpad is for whatever people use it for, and that is mostly looking at files in some sort of text (words on a pad). My point is if microsoft removes the ability to open a text file then the consequences are on them.
You’re thinking of Notepad I think
Yes, I would say notepad would be the bigger loss. But wordpad is still the default for people before they learn about things like notepad++
Notepad is the default text editor on Windows. I'd be surprised if most people even knew WordPad existed.
Interestingly enough I have seen a lot of new PCs that have Wordpad as default (mostly dells and some HPs).
I have seen that too and the first thing you do is change it to notepad as wordpad isn't good for text files
I like using it when I want to create a simple rtf document and not use a bloated Office.
as a replacement, markdown is your friend.
you can learn the symbols or (harder option) find a markdown wyswyg editor program.
Or, and hear me out on this, you create an unholy mixture of MD/HTML/Latex documents in a plaintext editor and then you use the Pandoc CLI to make it into a PDF/DOCX/website/whatever.
Wordpad can also open most Word files. Even though I have Office, I open word files in wordpad all the time, because it's so much faster to open. When I just need one small piece of info, that I am going to copy and paste, it saves me time.
probably takes a bit of effort to keep windows built-in spell checker from working in it.
Spell checker works in literally every part of windows (more so where you don't want it), this is the lamest weak sauce example on why you need to give me $20 ever.
So long as they don't fuck with Notepad, I could give a fuck. Notwithstanding Notepad++ is a thing, so the fuck to be given would be inordinately small.
Yeah where else would I open a ton of ascii art, followed by "Install, then copy crack to install folder" 😂
I used WordPad so much growing up. I fucking HATED Word and the office applications as a kid, WordPad just worked and just did writing, which is what I wanted to do.
Why did you hate office apps?
Clipart and wordart :3
All text breaks if I insert an image!
constantly reverting to the default font instead of the one I've used for the entirety of the document
no visual aid settings, the absolute literal WYSIWYG.
I provide support for a Windows-only application that has to do automated document conversion. Some customers refuse to pay for an additional Office license and the only other option is WordPad. Going back to work on Tuesday is going to suck.
cries in LibreOffice
I would love if we could use LibreOffice, but our application just doesn't work with it and our devs won't even look at it.
It was lighter than word or libre and had formatting, unlike simple word editors like notepad++. Bummer to see it go but surely there is (or will be) an alternative
And saved in the open rtf format. Programming a WordPad compatible alternative was my first semi-successful programming exercise.
You can probably still install this. Just like paint (the old version) and the non ad filled solitaire etc
I just use notepad++ when I have to use Windows PCs.
Wordpad is a rich text editor not a plain text editor.
I can't say I've used Wordpad intentionally - ever -, but they do serve different functions.
N.B. Notepad3 (originally Flo's notepad2) is a great drop-in replacement for notepad.exe (and even has an install option to do exactly that, so everything opens with it even if other programs call it). I install it on every Win system I have to manage. Not as big as Notepad++, but has syntax highlighting, line numbers and supports LF file endings.
EDIT: Disappointingly no screenshots on either site >:| It looks similar to vanilla notepad.exe
I honestly didn't even know it was still around. The last time I opened it was... Windows 7, I think?
No wtf microsoft!!
At least there's Notepad++. An absolute end of an era.
Wordpad is the rich text editor, it's not notepad
Notepad ++ is better anyway? Non story?
Do you even know what WordPad is?
I get it. MS has a “free” rich text editor, it’s Word online. You can easily install any other simple rich text editor (is abiword still a thing?) on Windows. Wordpad probably has minimal usage.
abiword's basically a dead project for windows and macos. the linux version i think saw an update a couple years ago.. but i can't get to the site (abisource.com) now at all to check.
This is my reaction even as a Windows user. In my experience, notepad is used when you just need to read what's in the file and formatting and such doesn't really matter, or you explicitly want as little processing of the data as possible. Like opening files that really aren't text based files.
And then if you actually want formatting, images, fonts, etc to make something look good you get an actual document editor: Word, Libre Office, etc.
The only thing I see WordPad providing is it's pre-installed and does have more functionality than notepad. I have used WordPad a couple of times when I've been on a new computer that doesn't yet have everything installed and I don't want to take the time to install an actual editor for whatever I'm doing. It's pretty damn rare though.
how will I read the instructions a vendor sent me for a windows server that is a word doc because who knows? Oh no... Anyway
"No one's paying for Microsoft Word, that thing that used to be free so... We gotta kill this so people too fucking stupid to use Libre Office get on board."
Web-based Word is free.
But it's shit.
Yeah, every time I've used word online it seems to find a new way to completely fuck up the document
I can see truth to either position presented in these comments, but I don't like being a fence sitter. That being said, I would think making it available but not mandatory would satisfy both opinions, right? Making it unavailable altogether is a move that seems to have an ulterior motive.
Not trying to defend Microsoft, but making it available to the fraction of a fraction that would actually download it is probably not worth it because you still would have to maintain it, making sure it's compatible with new windows versions and providing security updates.
It's a lot easier to just kill it outright, and those that do actually really really want it can find some third party who has uploaded a version of the exe file somewhere.
I agree with the first half of your statement completely, but as for killing it outright I would think turning it over to FOSS developers would be a less incendiary solution. As many people are saying, it hardly competes with other software that is already available.
This is very upsetting to me--more as a point of principle than in fact--but I appreciate that it doesn't bother younger generations at all. I just had a small argument with my 11 year old about how not-a-big-deal-who-cares this is, and it basically ended with us agreeing to disagree since it'll be his problem and his kids' problem.
And the problem is normalizing the notion that an OS doesn't need to include a non-subscription word processor. The entire point of this move is to shift the OS Overton Window in favor of consumers accepting and expecting that features like word processors, spreadsheets, etc., should be installed separately and paid for on a subscription basis despite previous iterations of the same software being feature complete on install and purchased at a set, non-recurring fee.
WordPad hasn't been anybody's first choice for a word processor in years, but it was included with Windows and did the bare minimum for unsophisticated users. Now we're entering an era in which those users will as a matter of course buy off-the-shelf computers that come pre-installed without WordPad, but rather with a trial of Office Fuck-You-Pay-Me Edition. Those users may well discover that after their first six months with their new computer (that has made Microsoft more money selling their data than they paid for it), they suddenly get a pop-up informing them that their trial is up and MS wants $99.99 to release the documents they're holding hostage.
It's a step backwards for consumers in general, so even for the sophisticated of us who are least likely to be personally affected by this change, there's definitely cause for alarm.
I get where you're coming from but I think you're overstating the impact in this day and age. If this had been 1995 it'd be a big deal. Now it's rediculously easy to install any alternative you like for free.
Libre Office is an entire free fully features office suite.
I'm less bothered about removing WordPad than I am about Microsoft advertising and pre-installing it's products in Windows - they force Edge on people, they push OneDrive and preinstall a preview of Office. That's the real problem - not losing WordPad.
At one point Anti-Trust / Anti-monopoly regulators globally punished Microsoft for pushing Internet Explorer to consumers and for a long time in Europe had to offer a choice of Browsers to download on new Windows installs. Now it's allowed to get away with abusing it's dominant position to force it's products on consumers.
Does liber office make .docx files and export to pdf?
Yes.
It does. It's fine as a replacement for Word, but no one has an answer for Excel. LibreOffice Calc is fine for a basic spreadsheet, but Excel is in a completely different universe than Calc with anything beyond that.
To be fair though, Excel is in a completely different universe than literally any other competing product.
I think calc is fine for a lot of use cases. I use it all the time. It is different though.
For advanced stuff I’d rather use Python anyway to be honest.
Do you know how both of those compare with Google Sheets?
Sheets is capable enough for the average person but a business is always going to want to use Excel because it's the industry standard.
I can't remember the last time I actually needed a spreadsheet for anything other than looking at a bunch of tabular data, but I'm a programmer so I'm not the standard spreadsheet user.
But then what do you use for database???
Probably a database.
Lol exactly
JSON files that get committed to a git repo, obviously. They're in a private repository in GitHub so that takes care of security and resiliency, two birds with one stone.
At first I was certain this was going to be sarcasm.
If you are an accountant, then it’s your beast of burden.
Accountant here. I prefer libreoffice calc.
Gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks for your reply!
Nothing compares to excel. There are spreadsheets, and there is excel. The world runs on excel, and for a damn good reason. Also, excel runs the world, literally.
So you’re telling me that Excel is very good at stuff?
It wouldn't be as good as everyone says if it didn't.
Yes, and recent versions of MS Word can also read odt, so no need for docx just to work with Word users.
Yup
I built a new PC two months ago and it's the first time I didn't get Office. Libre Office has everything I need and it's free.
I've wondered about free suites like these - how do they make money, do you know?
They don’t. Libre Office is maintained by a non-profit called The Document Foundation. They’re funded entirely by donations. I think they make enough to have some full time employees.
A lot of open source software is created by individuals or non-profits. The Mozilla foundation makes Firefox, for instance. They make money through donations and also Google pays them a ton of money to be the default search engine.
There are for profit companies that make or contribute to open source software. Such as Red Hat. They tend to make money by selling support for the software.
I don't think they make money. It's an open source project where people donate their time as far as I know.
EDIT: I forgot to mention you can donate to the project. Something has to pay for web hosting, I guess.
A bit of donations, a bit of unpaid people contributing just to help others.
Donations. Volunteers.
I'd like to normalize the notion that an OS shouldn't include any application software except for a browser you can use to install other things. Let people pick what they want to use and install it themselves.
Yeah, just download LibreOffice or use a free service like Google Docs.
You can even use Microsoft Word for free online.
The whole argument that "a subscription service becomes necessary" is nonsense.
Wasn't there an anti trust or monopoly suite against Microsoft for bundled IE back in the day? Funny how times change, though I agree it's not easy to get a preferred browser without one. Mean it never was overly simple but they were on so many CDs mailed out back then. Think it has to do with some IE and Windows integration too so not just cause they bundled it.
The problem with IE4 is that it was designed in such a way that it was deeply integrated into the operating system, such that it could not be uninstalled.
It's completely reasonable now to ship an operating system without a browser, as long as there's some kind of "app store" or "package manager" through which a user can install whatever browser they want (provided it's available through said store, of course).
Better yet, the OS should just include a desktop environment with simple utilities and a package manager to install the applications you want. It will make users less likely to run into malware while searching for the programs in the web
I think a file manager, text editor and command prompt are pretty essential too. And when you've added those, where exactly is the limit where it becomes "application software"?
I don't have an answer for that, but I know Wordpad is definitely not essential and I doubt anyone would use it if it didn't come with Windows
Yeah, even Apple includes the iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) for free on Macs and iPads, no subscription needed.
Tbh I use Notepad way more than anything for note making.
If it needs to be formatted, OneNote is free to use and can be saved in any cloud (if there is a shortcut like OneDrive or Dropbox in the Windows explorer)
If it needs to be free and not very sophisticated, I'd look around for a markdown based editor.
If all of that fails, I will use Word.
Never used Wordpad in 15 years (of 24 years of existence) except while trying to open word but Windows suggesting Wordpad first.
i use wordpad a lot for viewing docs (loads faster, uncluttered ui). occasionally writing them... and more than once instead of notepad for a text file (on a system without a notepad alternative available) because i needed more features.
i have a few clients that use wordpad as their 'word processor', lack of spelling check be damned.
microsoft must have run out of excuses for specifically not including one in it, seeing how recent windows has spell check baked-in to the os itself. so instead of losing a few dozen sales of office home and student or 365 by making wordpad just a little bit better for those who use it, they're gonna be the assholes and take it out completely and push everyone to the damn cloud app or a 365 sub. fk 'em.
Google Docs is free and has basically become the standard word processor for the “unsophisticated users” you’re worried about. It essentially comes with your OS because you only need a browser to use it.
I think your kid and his children will survive.
Making things in Google Docs is fine, but last I checked Google Docs just sucked at opening anything that wasn't already a GDoc. LibreOffice Writer sometimes has formatting errors opening Word Docs, but it does a miles better job than Google Docs.
Also, I hate how normalized everything using the cloud (aka "Someone Else's Hard Drive") for no reason is.
it still has strings attached, its not truly "free". heck, google won't let it be word pad had no ties to Microsoft once it was given to you. everything else but LibreOffice and some others still have its creator's ties.
Advertise and push Foss substitutes like libreoffice.
could go a step further and bin windows altogether.
granted, it's a big step for most.
Love Linux, love windows. 'ate mac, simple as.
Be part of the 3%! Join today!
Likely scenario, honestly.
I really don't worry about it, though.
Not to brag, but it doesn't bother me.
Understand, there is a solution.
X marks the spot.
(Yeah, I know, that's kind of stupid. But it seemed funny in my head.)
It’s too bad Linux isn’t more normalized. For those very simple users (and for the more sophisticated) Linux is probably much better than Windows at this point.
No ads, free software, updates can be very simple and stable, less security issues.
Then they ask their grandson or work it dept what they should do and both will answer libre office is free
I disagree. I don't think a rich text editor should be part of the OS as it's not there to operate the computer. An OS should be the tools to run applications and manage your computer. There are a bunch of apps which are so small that it makes sense to include them - like a calculator and text editor, but everything else should be optional.
There should be an OS out there for you which doesn't come with a rich text editor. [If there is ever a time to mention GNU+Linux in a MS thread then now is that time.] For most people however, not including it is a needless barrier to entry.
I am in a support group with over 100 senior citizens in it. Getting a file with a *.rtf extension used to be a thing, but it hasn't been a thing in years. I do get *.doc and *.docx files so they're probably getting lured into Office like you said even before Wordpad is removed.
WordPad was a fast and efficient way to view doc files without loading into LibreOffice or any other office suite, or to make rich text documents quickly. But alas, we have to go to the cloud for our notes now...
Seriously. Fuck OneNote with a cactus.
Careful, i heard some people tend to enjoy that
Do the ultimate OP solution and host your own nextcloud. It has built in office and everything google drive has.
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.
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
And huge. And bloated, if you only need simple functionality.
Abiword is pretty nice and not too bloated from what I remember
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...
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.
It has been literally twenty years since I last heard any mention of Abiword!
Honestly I'm not too bummed, especially with open-source solutions like Notepad++, but it's the end of an era! Also, Word is paid, and so Windows not having a built in free RTF editor is notable
Yeah, that is a bit odd, but then again when's the last time you've seen something other than a cut-rate eBook in RTF? Everything is either some variant of plain text or a DOC file these days.
Plus, it's rare that you ever need to edit RTF files. Read, sure, but that could be handled by Word Viewer, which is free.
EDIT: Right, they're discontinuing the viewers, but apparently they have a cloud-based online thing that's free? Sucks if you live somewhere with crap internet I guess.
A lot of ebooks seem to be more epub or pdf these days. RTF isn't used quite so much.
RTF is a rarity these days since basically every phone, tablet, and other handheld device can handle either PDFs or HTML (and ePub is basically just a ZIP file with HTML in a specific naming scheme and structure). Back in the day though you'd find RTFs more often for use in budget/jury-rigged eReader options. It's much easier to parse, if nothing else.
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.
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.
lightweight notes with margins
of course, gotta push more people to that godawful office 365 crap somehow
I mean, I use LibreOffice, but for people not that tech savvy it sucks they won't have a basic rich text tool included with Windows.
To be replaced by a link to WordPad Bing AI Edition
Ew. I’m annoyed by how correct you likely are.
Upcoming:
Direct image link
"Not able to generate content that is biased."
Well that's a fucking lie.
It already exists btw: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/clippy-by-firecube/9NWK37S35V5T
—Andrea, 2023-08-22
Only thing I used it for was when older versions of Notepad couldn't handle larger text files. Now it can. So, no loss to me. Notepad going away would suck, that does at least get occasional use although Notepad++ is far superior.
Notepad++ can't handle as big files for some reason. At work we have files that can reach 5-600 MB, and NP++ can't always open those, but notepad handles then with no problem.
I had the same problem but noticed that I was using the 32 bit version of notepad++, installed the 64 bits instead and had no problems with large files
That might actually be something to bring up with IT...
Tbf npp has much more functionality than regular notepad.
Just the syntax highlighting alone probably dramatically lowers the amount of text it can render.
I've opened 4GB files with notepad++ before. Sure, it takes several minutes (I basically have to go away and do something else, or leave it loading in the background) but it gets there, eventually.
NP++ straight up tells us it's too big to be opened...
With bigger files or searching in files where there's a lot of data I found sublimetext to be much more efficient (than n++)
There's a npp plugin called Big Files, I haven't used it but it might be worth a look.
Just upload it in the cloud and use Microsoft online word!
\s
Genuinely curious—why would someone choose to use notepad++ over something like VSCode in 2023?
I can't say I've used n++ in over a decade when I switched to sublime around 2010, moved again to VSCode about 5 years ago
VSCode uses electron so it's not exactly a lightweight text editor, way overkill if you just want to read a simple .txt. Add on the fact if you got way too many extension, it will be even heavier.
Slightly annoyed about this, as I do use Wordpad (it's lightweight and useful for quick notes that I want to mark up with bold and italic). I don't always want to watch Word or Libreoffice load for twenty to thirty seconds.
Shitty decision, happy to be Wordpad's one fan.
There's dozens of us!
Yeah, when I want to just jot some words down quick in Windows, Wordpad has always been my go-to, but main thing for me is opening .txt files. Maybe I'm dumb and there's some Notepad default layout thing I never bothered figuring out, but I don't want to have to scroll right to read long lines of text.
What about Notepad? I use it for the same quick notes
Doesn't have formatting, unless Notepad has got really adventurous at some point in the last decade or two.
Same boat. I have been using WordPad and .rtf format for all my notes for maybe 15 years.
I've been meaning to jump to a markdown editor for a long time, and after this news I've already started using MarkText. I probably should have jumped ship a long time ago, but at least I'm on the path now.
I will have to figure out a neat way to convert my .rtf notes to .md.Update: I've found Pandoc, it's a command line tool for which I've made a script for converting my .rtf files to .md.They must not be able to spy on people thru it
This place really hates MS. Can't believe some of the comments here.
Yeah it's really strange. I'm not a fan of MS by any means, but I've found myself making so many pro-MS comments on Lemmy just because the userbase leans so heavily pro-Linux and anti-MS.
Lemmy and other Fediverse sites tend to attract folks who prefer FOSS. Early Reddit was that way too!
It's not just preferring FOSS, though – it's as if people have to publicly perform their hatred of Microsoft.
thats what anger does usually
It shouldn’t be that strange. Linux nerds are a huge Lemmy demographic.
Much more up on new technology, FOSS, and privacy issues etc. than the general population. Good fit for Lemmy.
And then getting downvoted by people who just disagree with your opinion. I'm one of the Reddit refugees so I don't know if we brought that with us or Lemmy was like that before but it's sad to see.
That's why downvote buttons exist? If you want to express your opinion on the internet, go ahead, but you should be prepared for the possibility that it might not be a popular opinion.
Downvote buttons are meant to be used for comments that don't contribute to the discussion or are plainly completely wrong, not for opinions you disagree with. But most people can't stand being disagreed with on things they feel passionately about, so they will still downvote where they merely disagree.
It's just that it's boring. I'd rather have an interesting debate. Downvoting everything you simply disagree with just leads to groupthink forums.
No (and not downvoted) ... it's about controlling visibility.
https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/03-votes-and-ranking.html
My take: Upvote the stuff other people should see. Downvote the stuff that should have never been here at all. You don't have to agree or disagree, you can even have no opinion. But if you find it worthwhile to others, upvote it. Detrimental, downvote it.
MS has a history which informs what their fututre actions are likely to be. If you can't believe the comments here perhaps you have not heard that history. If you have then consider that lemmy is free software and so you're more likely to find that way of thinking here.
My goto for distrust of MS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
deleted by creator
Apple is a LOT worse than Microsoft these days
Not to mention the amount of people who think this is about notepad.
I mean, not many people are in the loving Microsoft camp. Tolerate maybe.
A broken clock can be right twice a day. Unless someone keeps playing with the dials.
As a former user, and an hardcore fanboy, I loved MS and Windows. They made computers accessible for the general public. The OS and the office suite were great. The sheer amount of available software for it was phenomenal. They even decided to publish games, which meant quality!
Until they decided to break things.
XP was a great OS, Vista wasn't. Then 7 was back to being good just for 8 to be not as good. Then Cortana and Edge and the push for cloud computing.
What worked, worked well and was actually useful was changed, removed, phased out...
GNU/Linux is not without its dramas and difficulties but we can expect a good degree of continuity between each version of a software (I'm looking a you, Gnome!). And if we're that hell bent on having that specific specific piece of software or OS setup, well, we can.
MS by contrast just chucks the good things out and doesn't even let them floating around as something users may add to their system.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
PowerToys is very much live and available for download. I use it daily.
PowerToys is alive and well, and updated regularly. More features now too.
PowerToys:
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/microsoft-powertoys/XP89DCGQ3K6VLD
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
Unpopular opinion: Vista was actually a good step forward, but the hardware of the time wasn't up for the task which made it run like dogshit, and hence the public perception. It brought in better memory management, and UAC for better security among other things.
They often replace things, e.g. the Photos app had a Video editor built in but now that's a separate and better app. I think they're doing a pretty good job of their software range actually.
What bugs me about Windows is actually their striving so much for backwards compatibility that there's at least 6 ways to edit things or data and they're all still officially supported. It's a bit bloaty and no Devs have any consensus.
The newer version is installed on my Windows 11 and is under active development.
Vista was a good idea and good start, but 7 was the finished product that needed shipped. Just like XP was the finished version of 2000, though 2000 wasn't bad, but XP was just better, more optimized, and yes hardware caught up also. 98, was 95 but better, fixed and polished. 10 was windows 8 better, fixed and polished, and they dumped that stupid fucking tablet interface that everyone hated, (and whoever put that interface in server 2012 needs to be beaten with a sand filled wiffle ball bat)
Backwards compatibility is why windows dominates the market. Without that, it wouldn't have taken over the business world. Legacy code is what makes the business world operate. Yes it hold back windows for some growth, but deprecating that would wreck so many businesses, especially small ones.
That name rings a bell. My username is from "Tweak Tools 95", which I think was a part of that or something.
Edit: Also Windows has a long history of alternating good and bad versions.
In theory, the next version of Windows should be fairly good, or at least an improvement on 11. However I worry that MS will buck the trend now - particularly as they've pivoted away from software sales to software as a service (with additional data collection because fuck paying users).
Unpopular opinion: Win 11 works well for me, and is visually better than Win 10. Although it's a fairly recent PC. Although if they keep pushing more telemetry and ads, I'm moving over to Ubuntu.
Its the small things on Windows 11 for me. Like the "more options" section on the right click.. that must have been added just to annoy people. It's where all the good options are.
Otherwise, seems to run fine.
I'm guessing you're pretty young, then.
I get that people here hate MS, but defending Wordpad is a bonkers hill to die on.
It's complete wank.
It's the free (as in beer) program that comes with windows to open doc and rtf files and put together fine enough documents. Dropping it is Microsoft telling users unwilling to pay for word without the technical knowhow to get LibreOffice or Abiword going to get fucked. Its anti consumer no matter which way you slice it.
I don't think so.
My in laws are very technologically illiterate. I bet they have never opened word pad except accidentally... but I guarantee they know what "Word" is and think "word pad" is just some nerdy tech person word for the software they know.
I bet the number of people who both rely on word pad and who don't know about any other free alternatives is so very low.
It's have to actually launch it to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you can open them in Edge these days, along with all the other office documents.
As for creating documents, your average social media comment editor has more features than Wordpad. Given that Chrome is still the most popular browser on Windows by some way, I think the average Windows user can download programs just fine. OpenOffice is even on the MS Store for those stuck on Windows S edition.
My basic text editor on Winows somehow broke and crashes with a wired memory error so I WordPad is my basic text editor
Why not libre Office ?
Notepad++ gang
Or download notepad.exe lmao fucc
I don't like Apple but they ship their devices with everything a basic user needs and if a high quality, completely for free. When you get a MacBook you don't need to worry about finding and downloading an external app for almost anything - from viewing any kind of file, to basic photo and video editing, to document processing, etc. And they don't track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
It's definitely not for free. You can buy several Windows laptops and Office licenses for a single Mac laptop.
While that's true, most windows laptops of similar build quality and form factor are around the same price. Windows also advertises to you and installs unwanted apps on your computer without modifications. Of course, you could always install Linux.
None that offer similar quality across the board in display, speakers, input devices, performance, battery life. Trust me I've looked. Alternative laptops aren't really any cheaper any more unless you get something of significantly lesser quality, in which case there's nothing surprising about that - something worse is cheaper.
Isn’t apple consistently removing ports on their newer products? I thought that was a common complaint.
It’s genuinely been ages since i’ve heard anyone try to defend the pricing of apple products for anything other than luxury purchases or rich people products. They’re vastly overpriced and underpowered, and they’re locked into the apple ecosystem. If you aren’t buying apple products for everything, suddenly a lot of shit doesn’t “just work” anymore lmao
Except for a calculator on iPads.
" And they don't track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products."
LOL ok
Except that businesses always find a way to lock themselves (and you) with Office, so regardless of all the chimes and stuff that come standard with your Mac you will still have to install Word because some exec somewhere might want to make some comments in your document in the form of highlighted, inline text instead of actual side comments.
I don't think that's really a fair complaint against Windows when Microsoft got sued for doing exactly that.
You sure about that? I just bought my mom a new iPad Air yesterday and the setup process was maddeningly privacy invading. Name, address, and phone number just to install anything from the Apple store. Both me and my mom, who's not tech savvy at all, thought it was crazy the amount of info we had to put in just to get a usable device.
There was also so many preloaded garbage apps installed by default. Why are apps like Measure there? Yes when I want to measure something...I reach for an iPad...instead of...you know...a tape measure... Just because they're first party apps doesn't make this okay. Also, Apple's ecosystem is famous for vendor lock-in.
They may not be as blatant about it as Google is, but they're every bit as bad tbh.
All well and good, but that still does not make a Macbook value for money.
Lol overpriced locked down PoS os
eh I use Linux on my desktop but macOS is a nicely polished UNIX operating system. It's only locked down for average users, you can usually get away with a quick
sudoor worst-case going into single user mode and disabling some system protections.I definitely prefer using *nix operating systems, and macOS gives me that for portable computing. I'm still more productive on Linux, but it's not too far apart.
This is how I feel too. Rather a locked-down polished UNIX system than Windows.
This is tru, however MacOS is still a lesser version of linux with a fancy skin. You have to get third party apps to support ntfs formatted drives.
MacOS has nothing to do with Linux, it's a bsd variant.
Honestly, this blows. WordPad fills a niche between a full blown text editor and notepad. Most of my random daily notes use WordPad still when not OneNote.
Notepad++ was a good alternative when I was running Windows
Wow someone was using this?
You can likely still grab the exe and use it
As long as they leave Notepad. I use it almost daily.
I used it for the past 3 month at work writing in Markdown, just bd aide of how fast and responsive it was to open and close different papers
I feel like even Microsoft would not be crazy enough to remove notepad.
"Active development"? What the fuck do they think needed to be done with txt? More ads? They do realize that there are a lot of txt looker aters right? This is not even a fight, its a "well anyway" sort of thing.
Wordpad is for looking at and editing rich text, not txt files. It's not a big deal because no one uses rtf.
Annoyingly enough, the other day got the first RTF file I've gotten in probably 20 years. To make matters worse, it was JSON that the customer decided should be sent as an RTF attachment to an email.
Of course I run Linux on my work computer so I didn't have wordpad anyway. I had to use a cli utility to convert it to text, then use vscode to properly format it, since he conversion removed all the indentation/spacing.
If I never see another RTF file again, it'll be too soon.
Word is not included with Windows apprently so Wordpad is useful at work when I don't have time to install LibreOffice.
Wordpad is for whatever people use it for, and that is mostly looking at files in some sort of text (words on a pad). My point is if microsoft removes the ability to open a text file then the consequences are on them.
You’re thinking of Notepad I think
Yes, I would say notepad would be the bigger loss. But wordpad is still the default for people before they learn about things like notepad++
Notepad is the default text editor on Windows. I'd be surprised if most people even knew WordPad existed.
Interestingly enough I have seen a lot of new PCs that have Wordpad as default (mostly dells and some HPs).
I have seen that too and the first thing you do is change it to notepad as wordpad isn't good for text files
I like using it when I want to create a simple rtf document and not use a bloated Office.
as a replacement, markdown is your friend. you can learn the symbols or (harder option) find a markdown wyswyg editor program.
Or, and hear me out on this, you create an unholy mixture of MD/HTML/Latex documents in a plaintext editor and then you use the Pandoc CLI to make it into a PDF/DOCX/website/whatever.
Wordpad can also open most Word files. Even though I have Office, I open word files in wordpad all the time, because it's so much faster to open. When I just need one small piece of info, that I am going to copy and paste, it saves me time.
probably takes a bit of effort to keep windows built-in spell checker from working in it.
Spell checker works in literally every part of windows (more so where you don't want it), this is the lamest weak sauce example on why you need to give me $20 ever.
Man fuck Microsoft. Killing a free app and replacing it with a paid app that has a subscription bundled.
What the actual fuck!!?
It's word pad though, do you really ever use it? I use notepad for a quick temp fix in a pinch, I haven't used word pad in like 15 years.
You... have heard of Microsoft before now, yes?
So long as they don't fuck with Notepad, I could give a fuck. Notwithstanding Notepad++ is a thing, so the fuck to be given would be inordinately small.
Yeah where else would I open a ton of ascii art, followed by "Install, then copy crack to install folder" 😂
I used WordPad so much growing up. I fucking HATED Word and the office applications as a kid, WordPad just worked and just did writing, which is what I wanted to do.
Why did you hate office apps?
Clipart and wordart :3
All text breaks if I insert an image!
constantly reverting to the default font instead of the one I've used for the entirety of the document
no visual aid settings, the absolute literal WYSIWYG.
I provide support for a Windows-only application that has to do automated document conversion. Some customers refuse to pay for an additional Office license and the only other option is WordPad. Going back to work on Tuesday is going to suck.
cries in LibreOffice
I would love if we could use LibreOffice, but our application just doesn't work with it and our devs won't even look at it.
RIP WordPad coders.
Not to worry my dear Wordpad coders: Neovim is a good alternative. One can always set wrap and the default font to Times New Roman.
Time to switch to a real pro IDE, which is Word obviously.
I use VSCodium instead.
Notepad++ here, and jerbrains ide for actual coding needs.
I do use vscodium on my Linux systems tho
BTW I use Vi.
oh no, anyway
It was lighter than word or libre and had formatting, unlike simple word editors like notepad++. Bummer to see it go but surely there is (or will be) an alternative
And saved in the open rtf format. Programming a WordPad compatible alternative was my first semi-successful programming exercise.
You can probably still install this. Just like paint (the old version) and the non ad filled solitaire etc
I just use notepad++ when I have to use Windows PCs.
Wordpad is a rich text editor not a plain text editor.
I can't say I've used Wordpad intentionally - ever -, but they do serve different functions.
I use notepad anyways
You mean Notepad++
If they remove sticky notes I'm going to lose my shit.
Funny story, I have a coworker who wanted a second monitor for her office PC. Now her second monitor is covered with sticky post it notes.
physical or digital post-its?
As long as they stay the fuck away from notepad
Lol almost the same software since windows 1
Now with tabs
Simply no. They modernized it in Windows 11 and made it do the expensive mica stuff have fonts and tabs and some awful "restore session" feature
I cried a bit inside when I saw the ribbon
N.B. Notepad3 (originally Flo's notepad2) is a great drop-in replacement for notepad.exe (and even has an install option to do exactly that, so everything opens with it even if other programs call it). I install it on every Win system I have to manage. Not as big as Notepad++, but has syntax highlighting, line numbers and supports LF file endings.
EDIT: Disappointingly no screenshots on either site >:| It looks similar to vanilla notepad.exe
I used to use WordPad a lot, I'd just press Win+R and enter "write"...
Now I get by with Libreoffice.
I guess it's time to go back to Microsoft Works
Wow, I had forgotten. Let's not actually.
Time to go back to WordPerfect
thanks for nothing, hitler
I honestly didn't even know it was still around. The last time I opened it was... Windows 7, I think?
No wtf microsoft!!
At least there's Notepad++. An absolute end of an era.
Wordpad is the rich text editor, it's not notepad
Notepad ++ is better anyway? Non story?
Do you even know what WordPad is?
I get it. MS has a “free” rich text editor, it’s Word online. You can easily install any other simple rich text editor (is abiword still a thing?) on Windows. Wordpad probably has minimal usage.
abiword's basically a dead project for windows and macos. the linux version i think saw an update a couple years ago.. but i can't get to the site (abisource.com) now at all to check.
A good alternative is abiword. Don't know if it exists on Windows tho.
You can add it back to the library from an older edition, and it will run fine if you want it badly enough.
Install Linux, use whatever the hell you like
Except Adobe 😞
RELIABLY
Photoshop, agreed.
For what we have VirtualBox and run it as a separate desktop.
Also, fuck Adobe
Linux, BSD, and macOS users:
Linux fanboys can't help but tell you they're Linux fanboys.
I guess the only thing more embarrassing would be being a Windows fanboy.
Techno-vegans
99% of Windows users, too.
This is my reaction even as a Windows user. In my experience, notepad is used when you just need to read what's in the file and formatting and such doesn't really matter, or you explicitly want as little processing of the data as possible. Like opening files that really aren't text based files.
And then if you actually want formatting, images, fonts, etc to make something look good you get an actual document editor: Word, Libre Office, etc.
The only thing I see WordPad providing is it's pre-installed and does have more functionality than notepad. I have used WordPad a couple of times when I've been on a new computer that doesn't yet have everything installed and I don't want to take the time to install an actual editor for whatever I'm doing. It's pretty damn rare though.
how will I read the instructions a vendor sent me for a windows server that is a word doc because who knows? Oh no... Anyway
"No one's paying for Microsoft Word, that thing that used to be free so... We gotta kill this so people too fucking stupid to use Libre Office get on board."
Web-based Word is free.
But it's shit.
Yeah, every time I've used word online it seems to find a new way to completely fuck up the document
And you must create a Microsoft account
eh, there's plenty of tools out there like notepad++, atom, obsidian, etc.
Wordpad is WYSIWIG, the alternatives you mentioned are more for replacing Notepad.
But yeah, why use WordPad when LibreOffice exists?
And none of them are doing what WordPad is doing.
I can see truth to either position presented in these comments, but I don't like being a fence sitter. That being said, I would think making it available but not mandatory would satisfy both opinions, right? Making it unavailable altogether is a move that seems to have an ulterior motive.
Not trying to defend Microsoft, but making it available to the fraction of a fraction that would actually download it is probably not worth it because you still would have to maintain it, making sure it's compatible with new windows versions and providing security updates.
It's a lot easier to just kill it outright, and those that do actually really really want it can find some third party who has uploaded a version of the exe file somewhere.
I agree with the first half of your statement completely, but as for killing it outright I would think turning it over to FOSS developers would be a less incendiary solution. As many people are saying, it hardly competes with other software that is already available.
I wouldn't be upset if they just put it on the Windows store.
Another advertisement for Linux...
Quill is free.
"Looks like you'll have to pay for Word instead"
Or LibreOffice or Only office or....
Oh for fucks sake
I was using WordPad a few times when I was a teenager on windows 95. :) Nostalgic to hear that name again.