Microsoft has decided to discontinue WordPad, a long-standing application that has been part of the Windows operating system for decades. The company confirmed that the application will no longer receive updates and will be removed in subsequent releases of Windows.
Shift to Other Microsoft Products
On the Deprecated features for Windows client page, Microsoft stated on September 1, 2023, “WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.” The company went on to recommend alternatives for users, suggesting, “We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.”
Implications and Wordpad Alternatives
With the removal of WordPad, users will need to transition to other text editing tools available within the Windows environment. Microsoft of course recommends its text processor Word to those who work with .doc and .rtf files. There is a free Web version of Microsoft Word with limitations that you can use without a Microsoft 365 subscription. For simpler needs, such as editing .txt files, you can still use the official Notepad app that comes with Windows.
