Time to Type - A Quick Introduction to Notepad and Wordpad.
Page 1. By Matt Western

This article will provide you with a quick introduction to two of Microsofts free word processors, Notepad and WordPad.

This article should provide you with enough information to get started with both Notepad and Wordpad.

Just a quick note here. I use the terms 'option' and 'function' interchangeably in this article. I use them to refer to things you can do with both Notepad and Wordpad. Also, the images used in this article show versions of Notepad and Wordpad used within Windows XP. Versions of Notepad and Wordpad from other versions of Windows may vary slightly.

So you've got an itch to type something up, maybe make a start on your memoirs?

You've got a computer that is more than capable, it's not the fastest thing around but it keeps up with you OK, you even have a printer to print out what you have or are about to write, but what do you use to write with.

Stop right here if you thought, 'pen'.

This is the 21st century, who uses pens anymore? (actually I do and I guess you do to, but I'm trying to sound cool and groovy here, so give me a little room).

All right enough of the funny stuff. So what can we use to create newsletters, documents and articles with on our computer?

In this article I'm going to introduce you to some programs. These programs commonly fall within the category of word processors or word editors or text editors but I'll just call them editors.

Some of the more common editors are produced by Microsoft. These include Word, Write, WordPad and Notepad, the latter two are included with Windows.

Microsoft Word is Microsoft's all singing all dancing, bells and whistles editor and it must be purchased. However, WordPad and Notepad, as I mentioned above come with Windows and it is these two editors I will introduce to you in this article.

Notepad.

Notepad is a very quick and easy text editor. It offers you only basic functionality, but is great for things like removing html formatting from html documents (sorry for the technical stuff, but it really is very useful and very good at doing this).

If you have a quick note to type up or anything else that just needs to be clear and legible, then Notepad is your answer. It is very easy to understand and use and loads up quickly.

Notepad.

Notepad does have some handy functions.

It allows you to orient the page in either landscape (wide or sideways) or portrait (tall or narrow); it allows you to perform 'finds' in your text.

Whoa there, what's a 'find' you may be asking.

Well a 'find' is an extremely useful feature. As its name implies, it allows you to find things. If you want to look for a particular word in your text, you can use the 'find' function to ask Notepad to look through all you text to find that word. Once it finds the word it highlights it for you.

If you thought performing a 'find' operation was great, you're going to love the next feature, it is very useful. It's the 'find and replace' option.

I know you're a pretty clever person so I guess you have already worked out that the 'find and replace' option lets you search through your text and 'find' a word and 'replace' it with another.

If that's what you thought, bravo, go straight to the front of the class.

The find and replace option is great and it is a widely included feature in many programs from many vendors.

Now even though I've called it the 'find and replace' option, you will find (no pun intended) that this function is simply called Replace.

Another basic option within Notepad is not very exciting, but it is useful and that is the 'Select All' option. This option allows you to select all, or mark, all the contents of your document within Notepad. Every bit of text, every image, every comma is selected when you choose to use this option. It is handy when you want to cut and paste or delete.

Under the Format heading on Notepads' menu bar is an option called Word Wrap.

When you select the word wrap option, whatever you type into Notepad will simply 'wrap' or end and start a new line when it hits the right hand margin.

The term wrap in this context means stop adding to the current line, drop down a line create a new line and commence adding text to this new line. The term wrap is used as in 'wrap around'

Without Word Wrap turned on your text creates one long single line.

The text will wrap around eventually, I've never counted how many characters it takes before it wraps around but it does.

The lucky last feature that may be of use is the 'Font' option.

You use any font that is installed on your PC with Notepad. The only downside to this is that you have to use it for every single word.

For example, you can't use Verdana in Bold for your headings and Arial for your body text. It's either Verdana in Bold or Arial for everything. There's no mixing and matching.

There is one more feature I overlooked and it may be useful to you.

If you press the F5 (function 5) key on your keyboard, you can insert the date and time into your text. I use this a lot.

That's about it for Notepad. Now a quick introduction to WordPad.

Time to Type - A Quick Introduction to Notepad and Wordpad.
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Article © Matt Western - deTechnify.com

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Matt Western has been working in the electronics and IT areas since 1983. These days he heads up deTechnify.com a web site aimed at clearing away the technical haze surrounding computers computing and the internet.
You can contact Matt via http://www.detechnify.com