wordpad document takes up much less space than word doc, so why use word?

Question

saved a file with the same characters both in wordpad and word....wordpad file is 1kb, word file is 24kb..so give me a good reason why i shud use word instead of wordpad

altho the wordpad file is rich text..wut does this mean

Answer 1

pure text file like *.txt, like the ones created in Notepad has no formatting in it. You can create the effect of formatting only by pressing Tab/ Enter in your keyboard.

rich text format, abbreviated to *.rtf, like the ones created in wordPad has more formatting than Notepad. For example, you can align the text centre/ right/ left .etc

*.doc files, like the ones created in MS Word, is rich in formatting and may even be able to work out with few strings of programming language, advance tabulation, etc.

That's why, more to offer more space does it take.
If you don't believe me.
Try making an advanced document in MS WORD, save it in *rtf; close it and open it in wordPad.. see how you have wasted your time in MS Word beautifying the look of your document only to find it ruined in wordPad..

Now, try to build a highly, good looking, formatted documents in wordPad; it will take more time (if you finally can make it, though) than doing it in MS Word.

Answer 2

FORMATTING!

Word documents take up more space because Word keeps track of more formatting options whether you use them or not.

With Wordpad, you can change the margins the text size, text color, text enhancements (bold, italic) paragraph alignment (left, center, right) and add bullets... but there's not much else you can do with Wordpad.

Word allows all the above plus multiple columns, text boxes (each with its own formatting) Wordart, picture formatting, text wrapping, mirrored margins, tables, Drop caps, fully justified text, headers and footers, page numbering, comments, revisions, tab formatting and much, much more.

If you only write simple documents, then either word processor will suffice. Whether you use Word's advanced features or not, it needs to record all the information anyway, therefore it takes up more space. In other words, even if you don't use headers and page numbering (for example) Word still records the fact that headers and page numbers aren't used.

For a small letter the file size discrepancy is substantial, but on larger documents, it's less noticable. Unless your using a tiny hard drive and space is an issue, use Word. If you want to save even more space, try using Notepad.

I'll take Word anyday over Wordpad. Notepad saves as plain text only, compare Notepad files to Wordpad's rich text (formattable) text to know what rich text is all about. You can't make red letters or two different font sizes with Notepad.

Answer 3

File > Save As... > Scroll down the file type menu until you find .doc (Microsoft Word 93-2003 document) As for your OpenOffice question, once you open a document in a program, it's going to format it to look native to that application, which may break compatibility with others, or even different versions of the same software (hi, Microsoft). That's why office documents very rarely look perfectly the same when viewed across multiple applications - they format things differently. MS Office 2007 uses a special proprietary XML-based formatting that will not work in pretty much any other office program. However, this wouldn't change the file type. The fact that you're seeing Word icons is simply showing you that OpenOffice is gone and that Word is in fact your preferred application to read .doc/.docx with. Regardless, this doesn't change OpenOffice's initial formatting within the document. So yes, that behavior is normal.

Answer 4

In wordpad the files are saved as Rich Text format with the extension .rtf. In wordpad, you cannot use tables, customise the bullets according to your choice, use macros, etc., which are available in word. Further, lots of utilities are available in Word, like Mail Merge, saving the document as webpage, etc.