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USING WINDOWS 7 -
WORDPAD

Brian Grainger

brianATgrainger1.freeserve.co.uk

In previous articles of this series I have, so far, been somewhat critical of the changes in Windows 7. I thought I would start my look at the applications with Windows 7 at one that I really like, namely WordPad. That is not to say that there are no faults but in the case of WordPad the first impression is that of improvement since the version within Windows XP.

I have always liked WordPad, the no frills alternative to Word. For the majority of writing needs it is quite sufficient. If you just want to write a letter, a note or keep some written records of anything it has sufficient capabilities to produce formatted text without the complications of the more advanced features of Word. It will also import from and export to the Word format so document interchange is possible.

If you fire up WordPad from Windows 7 the first thing you notice, if you are used to the Windows XP version, is that the menus have gone and they have been replaced by a 'ribbon' interface, as used in the latest Microsoft Office.

When the ribbon interface was first introduced in Microsoft Office it came in for much criticism. Old hands felt it was a step backwards. Those of us who can really ring the power from Office still don't like the ribbon interface and find it less efficient than a menu system. The supporters of the ribbon interface say it makes it easier to find functionality that was hidden away in the menu system. This is undoubtedly true because the average Office user seems to like the ribbon interface after a few hours of usage. I am not going to give a detailed expose of the interface here, after all this article is about WordPad.

The truth of the matter is that apart from 1 gripe with the ribbon interface of WordPad I found it helped to make WordPad easier to use. My theory on why this is so is that there are less menu options in WordPad, (compared to Word), and they are almost ALL represented on the ribbon without taking away too much screen estate. This is evident when you try to display a menu interface. The other built-in applications of Windows 7 will display a menu if you can find the magic combination of keys to do it. Unlike in Windows XP, where pressing the ALT key will activate the menu, the key combination to activate menus in Windows 7 is not consistent throughout the applications. We find with WordPad that there are no menus at all and pressing the ALT key with give key codes to activate features on the ribbon using the keyboard, rather than a mouse. Each key is shown next to the ribbon feature it activates. This works because almost ALL the WordPad features are on the ribbon. The two that aren't (undo and redo) are on the Quick Access Toolbar. It just would not work with Word because, firstly, there are too many features to display on the ribbon all at once and, secondly, there are many features that are not on the ribbon at all!

The one gripe I have about the ribbon interface is general to many applications. If one looks at the ribbon interface one sees a picture of a page with a down arrow to the right, followed by the words Home and View. These are the tabs of the interface but why mix pictures and words, especially when the picture is so similar to that in the top left of the Window bar that it is easy to get confused. I would have preferred the picture of the page to be replaced by the word File because it is this menu item from the Windows XP version of WordPad that is being placed on the ribbon interface in this tab.

It is worth mentioning here the other feature of the interface, the Quick Access Toolbar. Because the ribbon interface is in tabs you cannot view all the options at one time. The Quick Access Toolbar allows you to add options from the ribbon interface onto a toolbar that is visible at all times. By default File Save, Undo and Redo are displayed on the Quick Access Toolbar at the left side of the Window bar. A few select options can be added by clicking the down pointing arrow to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar. You can add any other option from the ribbon to the Quick Access Toolbar by right clicking the option from the ribbon and selecting 'Add to Quick Access Toolbar'. Note that you must add items in the sequence you want them displayed. You cannot move them around afterwards.

It is worth mentioning for Microsoft Word users that clicking the down arrow to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar will provide means of adding many items that are NOT available on the Microsoft Word ribbon interface. If you think something that used to be on a menu has gone missing I would recommend checking what can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar!

Finally the Quick Access Toolbar can be positioned below the ribbon. If you combine positioning the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon with minimising the ribbon you get a very similar looking interface to the old XP version. The ribbon tabs now just show the tab labels (another reason to have File rather than that picture of a page!) and you have a toolbar below to which you can add your favourite options. I thought I would try this as an exercise with the result below:

All the toolbar options are on one toolbar rather than being split on a toolbar and format bar but apart from that it is pretty much identical.

The next thing you will notice has changed since Windows XP will become evident when you type a few lines and paragraphs.

1. The default font has changed from Arial 10 to Calibri 11.
2. The default line spacing has changed from single to 1.15.
3. By default a 10pt space is added after a paragraph.

If there is one thing I hate, it is changing the defaults from one version of Windows to the next. What is the point? We all have to learn how to do things all over again. What is worse about these defaults in WordPad, in particular the line spacing, is that it runs counter to what many people want. Only lawyers (and authors who want their work manually proof read) like to have lines spaced with gaps in between.

The change to Calibri 11 mimics the change in the latest versions of Office, although in Microsoft Word the change was from Times New Roman 12 to Calibri 11. When I started using word processors the general wisdom was that in free flowing text serifed fonts were easier to read than san-serifed fonts.

Serifed fonts have those extra flourishes on the extremities of letters. Times New Roman was a serifed font and Calibri is a san-serifed font. San-serifed fonts were recognised as useful for such things as notices and short text extracts. It seems odd to me that Microsoft Word should use a default font that is not suitable to free flowing text. Arial was a san-serifed font so WordPad has always been an oddball and the change to Calibri now is no different from this point of view.

I guess spacing between paragraphs is a personal taste. I like to put my own spaces in so that I don't have to resort to line breaks, (which needs a shift-return to enter into Word or WordPad), when I don't want spaces. 10pt space is larger than a line depth so maybe that choice is odd. 6pt is more appropriate.

To add insult to injury to these default changes is that there is no way of changing the defaults to your personal taste. It is as if Microsoft deliberately chose bad defaults and made it impossible to change them, so that you don't use WordPad and get Word instead! The solution to the problem is to create a blank document and change the font, line and paragraph spacing to your preferred options and then save the blank document. If you now make this template file read only you can open it every time you want to start a new WordPad document. As the file is read only you will be asked for a new filename when you save it so there is no chance of overwriting your template file and having to create it again. Even now there appears to be a feature that if you cut from an HTML file and paste into WordPad the original defaults return to the pasted section! I think this is the only gripe I have with the Windows 7 WordPad.

It is time to talk about save file formats. The default save file format with WordPad in Windows XP was Word 6 format. This was readable by just about anything, A long time ago hackers found a way to use Word 6 to execute malware. Microsoft are now saying Word 6 file format is insecure so the default WordPad save format has changed to rtf. I don't find this a problem as rtf, although a Microsoft defined format, is also readable by just about anything. More importantly, WordPad no longer supports Word 6 format at all. You cannot read Word 6 format files either. It does support the latest Microsoft docx format as well as the latest open document text format, odt so WordPad from Windows 7 should be able to transfer files with most word processing systems out there.

Although rtf is a standard format Microsoft seem to implement it differently in each of its products. rtf files created using Word have always been larger than the identical rtf file created with WordPad. Now, I find that rtf files from the latest Outlook e-mail system are also huge in comparison with WordPad. WordPad becomes my tool of choice for storing of e-mails because files take much less space.

The list of functionality that has been added to WordPad from the Windows XP version is very small, namely:

• Format background colour/highlight
• Format font superscript
• Format font subscript
• Format Bullets now has more than one style
• Redo

However, together with the new document save formats, these options really add to make WordPad a very useful Microsoft Word replacement for most people. I think the only problem is getting people to realise that you do not have to go out and get Microsoft Word if you want to create text! WordPad is a great tool.

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