A few days ago we looked at the improvements in Windows 7 Paint. Today, I want to pay some attention to one of the other long-standing applications in Microsoft’s operating system, the venerable Wordpad. Doomed to forever straddle the line between Notepad and Microsoft Word, Wordpad has been upgraded in some useful ways, though in others it remains frustratingly limited.
The Good
Like Paint, Wordpad has been given the Ribbon treatment this time around. The more I see this interface in applications, the more convinced I am of its superiority to the old File/Edit/Tools/Help/Etc. menus that most Windows and OS X applications continue to use. In Wordpad, the effect is best described as “Word Lite.”
The new WordPad
Wordpad’s best new feature is its ability to read and save files in the OpenDocument format (.odt), which will make open-source proponents happy, and also in Microsoft’s Open XML format (.docx). This is the same file format used by default in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010, and is great for reading or doing basic edits to those documents on a computer without Office installed.
Unfortunately, the new Wordpad still cannot work with Word 97-2003 (.doc) files. Viewing these files will still require the installation of a Word viewer, and editing them will require Word or a Word-compatible word processor.
Aside from that, most of Wordpad’s new features are right on the surface. You’ve got standard Font and Paragraph options…
Font and Paragraph settings
Here, you can change spacing and alignment along with Font, size and color. Also included is the ability to do subscript and superscript, bulleted and numbered lists, and a highlighter.
Next, the Insert menu, mostly for inserting pictures into documents.
The Insert menu
Inserting a picture is self-explanatory. Inserting a Paint drawing will open Paint and insert whatever doodles you make into the document. Date and time is another easy one. Insert object is less easy to explain – basically, it’s a way to embed pictures, other documents and PDFs into a document. I can’t imagine a use for this, but I’m sure someone somewhere will appreciate it.
You’ve got a few editing options as well, including a basic find-and-replace function that’s great for basic editing.
Editing options
Lastly, the View tab houses a few basic display options, including zoom and the ability to make some taskbars appear and disappear.
View menu
The Bad
Most notably, Windows 7 Wordpad does not include spellcheck – apparently people who aren’t willing to pay extra for Microsoft Word are not good enough to be allowed to spell correctly. This is the single feature that keeps Wordpad from being a usable basic word processor, and its exclusion doesn’t make any sense.
Free Web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome include spellchecking. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard includes a spellchecker with autocorrect that works with every application in the operating system. I know that Wordpad isn’t used as a full-featured word processor, but is that because it can’t be, or because it is arbitrarily limited by Microsoft in an effort to get you to buy something else?
This gripe can be addressed by installing a third-party spellchecking program, but it’s 2009, and I shouldn’t have to do that to enable basic features in my word processor.
The Conclusion
The new Wordpad is a solid upgrade to a program that has been with us since the Windows 3.1 days. However, just as the new Paint isn’t meant to be a replacement for Photoshop, Wordpad is obviously not meant to replace a full-featured word processor. It’s great that Wordpad can work with .docx and .odt files, but the exclusion of a spellchecker is a major downside. Maybe next time?
