Microsoft is discontinuing WordPad after nearly 30 years of use

Anyone still using WordPad on Windows will, at some point, need to find another program to open and read their favorite documents. In its latest version, List of obsolete Windows featuresMicrosoft announced that WordPad will no longer be updated and will be removed in a future Windows update.

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Microsoft hasn’t announced when WordPad will be discontinued, so we don’t know how long the app will last. Microsoft didn’t explain why WordPad is being discontinued either. However, the company advised people to use Microsoft Word to view rich text documents such as .DOC and .RTF files, and Notepad to read plain TXT files.

WordPad was introduced with Windows 95 in 1995 as a more capable alternative to the bare-bones notepad app. Since then, the program has been built into all versions of Windows and has undergone certain enhancements over the years, including support for Microsoft Word documents and the Ribbon interface.

WordPad can read basic Word documents, but cannot handle more advanced formatting, layout, and content. As such, it has always been of limited usefulness to Microsoft Word users.

Additionally, WordPad lacks certain features found in most genuine word processors, such as a spell checker, table and column tools, page numbers, headers and footers, and chart and graph support.

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Given its limitations, why has WordPad been around for so long? Well, it’s better than Notepad and freely accessible from Windows. But over time, other, more effective options have emerged.

If you just want to view Word documents, you can use various third-party file viewer Readers are also available. If you want to create and edit Word documents, but don’t have a paid version of Word, you can always free online version So is Google Docs.