Wordpad question

[colrich]

I prepare various documents on wordpad using various page setups- ie different top, bottom and side margins for each document. When I open an old document however it always opens in whatever page/margin set up I last set, rather than the one used when the document was prepared. I therefore have to re-enter the page setup settings for that document before it will display propery - which means of course keeping a note of the settings I used document by document.

Is there any way of "saving" the page setup settings with each individual document so that each one automatically opens using the settings originally used when it was prepared?

[rong]

Save it as a template

[colrich]

Save it as a template

Thanks very much Rong- I don't know what that means at the moment but I'll find out. Any other comments welcome.

[rong]

Just looked and you don't have the option in word pad, I just looked at your question as word so sorry.

[colrich]

Just looked and you don't have the option in word pad, I just looked at your question as word so sorry.

Ok, absolutely no problem Rong, thanks for letting me know so quickly. Any other advice anyone?

[rong]

You could download and try http://download.openoffice.org/ it's free and compatible with office, I haven't used it for ages and don't have it on my computer to try, so I don't know if you can save templates but would think it would.

[catgate]

Yes, you can save templates in OO.

I was wondering the same thing ...why use Wordpad?

But there is probably some reason that is not readily obvious.

[colrich]

Yes, you can save templates in OO.

I was wondering the same thing ...why use Wordpad?

But there is probably some reason that is not readily obvious.

Well thanks for that. The only slight problem with using open office is that any documents then saved to disc will only open on another computer if that other computer has open office (or word, or wordreader), which many do not, and for that reason I would have preferred to use wordpad if there was a way of saving the page setup automatically with the document.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Open Office will create Office-compatible documents. Another computer opening the docs will open them with whatever is available on that system:

• Microsoft Office
  
• Open Office
  
• Word Viewer
  
• Wordpad
  

Wordpad is very, very limited with its document design functions; anything else is way better.

[AlanHo]

With most word processors - and certainly with Word - you can "Save As" in plain text (.txt) which can be read by any other word processor or Wordpad.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

But that does lose all formatting; then you can as well use Notepad.

[rong]

I haven't tried Open Office with a word document, I did try it with an Excel document and everything came out the same and converted back the other way with no problems, mind you I do still use Office 97 as it does everything I need. So I would think there would be no problems with opening word pad documents, the easy way is to try it and see, if your on broadband it will only take a short time to download.

[colrich]

Thanks very much for all the help and suggestions. Being a simple person I'd still prefer the simplest way, which would be just to use wordpad and save the set up automatically with the document. No-one has come up with a way of doing this yet- is it impossible?

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Wordpad simply cannot do this. Wordpad is a very old application from the very early days of Windows, and hasn't seen any changes or improvements since then. Microsoft Office (Word) is the way doing things today, or the alternative free Open Office.

[colrich]

Thank you Pat. Time microsoft shaped up on this if you ask me!

[Dencandy]

Thank you Pat. Time microsoft shaped up on this if you ask me!

I agree. There's a huge gap between Notepad and Wordpad, on the one hand and Word on the other. Word is getting more and more complex, and now takes months to learn how to use. (Personally, I'm sticking to the 2002 version as it's simpler.) But Notepad and Wordpad are too basic. Also these 2 seem very similar. Rather than making Word more and more complex (and obscure) MS would improve their standing with customers if they developed Wordpad, say, to make it into a simplified version of Word so that we could all do the things with it that colrich refers to.

Come on Microsoft, get your finger out!

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

The complexity of the Microsoft Office components is fine for professional users, but too much for most casual users.

Microsoft has recently made several of their products (Visual Studio Express, SQL Server Express) available free for casual users; it would be nice if they would make a scaled-down version of Office available for the same user group.

[colrich]

Well, despite what I thought earlier it seems Word reader will not open an Open Ofice document. If emailing a doument to someone it seems to me the options are (a) use Wordpad, it which case you need to give the page set up settings in order to endsure it displays propery; (B use open office- useless if the recipient does not have it; or © buy Word- then the recipient will need to have Word ot Word reader installed. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Microsoft do not improve Wordpad because it could affect sales of Word. Any further comments, advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

[colrich]

Sorry about the emoticon in my last post, it was meant to be point b.

[doug]

Post OK now?

[colrich]

Yes, thanks a lot Doug. One day I'll get the hang of theses things.

[Alan2273]

Open office will open in Word Reader, but you need to save it as a .doc file.

If you click on save as, then in the dialogue box select the file format to save it in.

[colrich]

Thanks Allen, that's useful to know. I still think the present situation reflects badly on microsoft who, after all these years of development still fail to provide their customers with a satifactory universal way of sending documents. Any further comments from anyone appreciated.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

The recipient may also need the latest version of the Word Viewer.

... still fail to provide their customers with a satifactory universal way of sending documents.

Not quite sure what the problem is with the current way of sending documents (as an email attachment)?

[colrich]

Well Pat my point is, if you email an .odt document you need to make sure the recipient has Open Office, or it won't open: if you send it .doc you need to make sure they have Word Reader or Word, or it won't open; and if you send it .rtf you will need to make sure they have the page set-up you used, so they can set the same page setup. otherwise it probably won't display properly. Not the end of the world, but there doesn't seem to be one ideal self-working solution provided as standard with windows - even Vista. Seems a bit of a farce in 2008 to me! Or am I missing something obvious?