word to wordpad

I have a new computer with 10. I have not installed any word processing software and am content for the time being with Wordpad. However, all documents that I have imported into this computer show up as Word documents. When I try to open them I am informed that Microsoft will give me a little time to think it over. I do not want Microsoft Word. I do not.

I may install Word Perfect, as I have a copy, but it bugs me that I can't simply open these documents with Wordpad. What's going on? Even the documents that I wrote and saved in Wordpad on my former computer have been changed into Microsoft Word and are now unavailable to me.

There must be a way to avoid Microsoft Word and open my documents with Wordpad.

Can anybody help me with this?

Wordpad doesn't support all the features of Microsoft Word. Have you tried right clicking on the document > open with... > More Apps > Wordpad.

Another option would be to install Libre Office. It's free and it supports doc and docx file formats.

Thanks for the reply, Neemobeer.

Yeah I tried that. It shows up as a page full of nonsense symbols. I've tried that before. I don't want to install any free programs. If there is one thing I have learned about the internet, it's that "free programs" often come with free trouble.

I know Wordpad is a relatively stripped-down word processor compared to Microsoft Word, but I don't care. I ain't fancy. All I want is for the text to show up. If I don't have the fancy features of Microsoft Word that is fine with me. After years of working with Word, the only thing I can honestly say is that Microsoft Word has cost me a lot of money, given me a lot of trouble, and wasted a lot of my time.

It reminds me of the Jimmy Soul song, "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life never make a pretty woman your wife."

stonefly said:

I have a new computer with 10 ...There must be a way to avoid Microsoft Word and open my documents with Wordpad.

It seems quite common these days that new PCs come with Word as the default association for documents as a 'advert' to try and get you to buy Word. It is easy to change the default association to Wordpad.

Bree said:

The document will open with whatever is set in the file associations. Maybe MS deliberately set the default association to Word to 'encourage' you to purchase their product. It's easy to change the association to open documents with anything you want. Settings > System > Default apps and click Set defaults by app. Scroll down the list to find Wordpad, click on it and it says...

Microsoft WordPad is a word processing program that you can use to create and edit text documents with rich formatting and pictures. WordPad can open .docx, .odt, .rtf or .txt files.

Click the 'Choose defaults for this program' and tick the ones you want it to open, I'd tick the first three and leave the default Notepad to handle .txt files.

Wordpad files will not allow write permission.

Bree said:

It seems quite common these days that new PCs come with Word as the default association for documents as a 'advert' to try and get you to buy Word. It is easy to change the default association to Wordpad.

Wordpad files will not allow write permission.

The Word documents are showing up as .doc rather than .docx. I followed your suggestion, but when I tried to open the document I got the same song and dance from Microsoft, specifically, "Buy Microsoft Word". There must be some way out of this dilemma. Microsoft has hijacked all my documents and is holding them for ransom.

stonefly said:

I don't want to install any free programs. If there is one thing I have learned about the internet, it's that "free programs" often come with free trouble.

You do indeed have to be very careful. For most things that means only downloading direct from the authors. Most 'free download' sites bundle some unwanted 'extras' in their install package. Often (but not always) you can opt out of installing the 'extras', but it's all too easy to miss unticking one.

For LibreOffice the authors are: https://www.libreoffice.org/

There's one other place that's safe from bundled 'extras', the Portable Apps versions. LibreOffice is also available as a portable app http://portableapps.com/apps/office/...ffice_portable (which is what I use).

stonefly said:

The Word documents are showing up as .doc rather than .docx. I followed your suggestion, but when I tried to open the document I got the same song and dance from Microsoft, specifically, "Buy Microsoft Word". There must be some way out of this dilemma. Microsoft has hijacked all my documents and is holding them for ransom.

Right-click on the .doc, choose 'Open with...' and select Wordpad. If Wordpad opens it correctly, repeat the exercise, this time ticking the 'Always open with...' box. If Wordpad shows a jumble of weird text, then that particular .doc may well be a genuine Word document. You'll need software that can handle the Word format, either from Microsoft or one of the 'office equivalents' - LibreOffice (the one I would choose) or OpenOffice.

As you said...

stonefly said:

...all documents that I have imported into this computer show up as Word documents...

...it may well be that they really are in Word format. Did you have Word (or its equivalent) on the machine you imported from?

Do you still have that machine? If so you could open the documents and save in a format that Wordpad understands - .rtf is a 'lowest common denominator' understood by most apps.

I clicked "choose default apps by file type" and found my .doc extension. I associated it with Wordpad. I do get the file. However, it is preceeded and followed by a bunch of this stuff: ÐÏࡱá. Mucho, so yeah it looks like I'll be able to redeem my files, but I have to do a lot of cleaning up on them. That's Microsoft.

stonefly said:

I clicked "choose default apps by file type" and found my .doc extension. I associated it with Wordpad. I do get the file. However, it is preceeded and followed by a bunch of this stuff: ÐÏࡱá. Mucho, so yeah it looks like I'll be able to redeem my files, but I have to do a lot of cleaning up on them. That's Microsoft.

I just spot-checked opening up a bunch of .docx files with Wordpad, and each opened correctly -- no garbage. Not sure what's going on with yours.

The most popular and safe free alternative to Word is OpenOffice. Just make sure you download it from their official site. It is fully compatible with Word and Excel.

Apache OpenOffice - Official Site - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

By the way the characters you see are the imbedded formatting codes that are particular to Word. WordPad just shows the raw characters instead of formatting the document.