Reading a Win98 Wordpad File in Newer Versions of Windows

I need to make a simple flyer but I dont have a printer. I will make it
using Wordpad in Win98se, then take it to a local copy shop to print it
and make copies.

I'll be saving it as a .DOC file.

The print shop uses mostly Macintosh computers, but I know they have at
least one Windows machine, which is probably Windows 8.

Will that computer read my file corectly?

What about the Mac computers?

(I know not to use fonts that are not included in Windows).

-OR-

Would it matter if I used my XP machine and used Wordpad from XP???

Thanks

wrote:
I need to make a simple flyer but I dont have a printer. I will make it
using Wordpad in Win98se, then take it to a local copy shop to print it
and make copies.

I'll be saving it as a .DOC file.

The print shop uses mostly Macintosh computers, but I know they have at
least one Windows machine, which is probably Windows 8.

Will that computer read my file corectly?

What about the Mac computers?

(I know not to use fonts that are not included in Windows).

-OR-

Would it matter if I used my XP machine and used Wordpad from XP???

Thanks

Probably won't have any trouble with either Win or Mac.
Remember, a Wordpad doc is not a Word doc.
However, just in case, save the file as a RTF, also.

Save it as RTF. You can write it in Wordpad or
Write. They're basically the same. It's what's
known as a RichText file.

If you can use XP you can also use Wordpad.
It should be in \Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\
But if you have XP you can install Libre Office, which
will give you more options and probably better printing.

RTF files tend to look a lot like early HTML files.
They're fine, but the details of font edges, colors,
etc just seem to be less precise than the more
modern counterparts.

Mayayana wrote:
Save it as RTF. You can write it in Wordpad or
Write. They're basically the same. It's what's
known as a RichText file.

Probably better to use Wordpad, which is newer. Come to think of it, I
didn't know Write was even on Windows98, but my memory may be failing me.

Some newer programs may not be able to open .wri files anymore, so best to
stick with Wordpad and its RTF format.

IIRC, some versions of Wordpad may save the file as .doc as the default, but
it's really a RTF file, in disguise. If that's the case, it might be best
to explicitly save it as RTF, so there's no potential for confusion on the
other end (when its being imported).

On Wed, 1 Jul 2015 21:24:59 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Mayayana wrote:
Save it as RTF. You can write it in Wordpad or
Write. They're basically the same. It's what's
known as a RichText file.

Probably better to use Wordpad, which is newer. Come to think of it, I
didn't know Write was even on Windows98, but my memory may be failing me.

I dont think "Write" came with W98. However, I do have it installed,
which I probably copied from Windows 3.x years ago. I have not used it
in years. But I use Wordpad all the time. I have never bothered to
install MS Word or any such programs. I never needed them.

Some newer programs may not be able to open .wri files anymore, so best to
stick with Wordpad and its RTF format.

IIRC, some versions of Wordpad may save the file as .doc as the default, but
it's really a RTF file, in disguise. If that's the case, it might be best
to explicitly save it as RTF, so there's no potential for confusion on the
other end (when its being imported).

This I never knew. I thought a .DOC file was a .DOC file. Wordpad does
all I need. The flyer I need to make is just text, but will need some
large letters (big font size).

Actually, I have AMI-PRO too, (which goes way back), but that has it's
own format, so I wont use that.

Now, I only need to try to remember which fonts are included in Windows.
I added lots of them over the years. I suppose to be safe, I should copy
all the fonts on the flash drive too, just in case!

Thanks!

By the way, I have WORDVIEW.exe installed to view never .DOC files.
Trying to load them in Wordpad makes wordpad crash!

wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jul 2015 21:24:59 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Mayayana wrote:
Save it as RTF. You can write it in Wordpad or
Write. They're basically the same. It's what's
known as a RichText file.

Probably better to use Wordpad, which is newer. Come to think of it, I
didn't know Write was even on Windows98, but my memory may be failing me.

I dont think "Write" came with W98. However, I do have it installed,
which I probably copied from Windows 3.x years ago. I have not used it
in years. But I use Wordpad all the time. I have never bothered to
install MS Word or any such programs. I never needed them.

Some newer programs may not be able to open .wri files anymore, so best
to stick with Wordpad and its RTF format.

IIRC, some versions of Wordpad may save the file as .doc as the default,
but it's really a RTF file, in disguise. If that's the case, it might
be best
to explicitly save it as RTF, so there's no potential for confusion on
the
other end (when its being imported).

This I never knew. I thought a .DOC file was a .DOC file. Wordpad does
all I need. The flyer I need to make is just text, but will need some
large letters (big font size).

Actually, I have AMI-PRO too, (which goes way back), but that has it's
own format, so I wont use that.

Now, I only need to try to remember which fonts are included in Windows.
I added lots of them over the years. I suppose to be safe, I should copy
all the fonts on the flash drive too, just in case!

Thanks!

By the way, I have WORDVIEW.exe installed to view never .DOC files.
Trying to load them in Wordpad makes wordpad crash!

I seem to recall that some versions of both Wordpad and MS Works would or
could save files with a .doc extension, but that neither one was a "true"
..doc file, per se ("true" here meaning identical in format to one produced
by MS Word). Maybe both were .RTF in disguise.

As for Windows Write, you just reminded me: sounds like the Win 3.1 days.
And I bet it's so old it can't even use long filenames (as just one
limitation), so it's best to forget that one.

On Wed, 1 Jul 2015 23:55:17 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:


Thanks!

By the way, I have WORDVIEW.exe installed to view never .DOC files.
Trying to load them in Wordpad makes wordpad crash!

I seem to recall that some versions of both Wordpad and MS Works would or
could save files with a .doc extension, but that neither one was a "true"
.doc file, per se ("true" here meaning identical in format to one produced
by MS Word). Maybe both were .RTF in disguise.

As for Windows Write, you just reminded me: sounds like the Win 3.1 days.
And I bet it's so old it can't even use long filenames (as just one
limitation), so it's best to forget that one.


You had me stumped on the long file names.
So I tried it. Yep, it does NOT allow long file names. I entered some
characters and saved as: "manuscript123.wri". I got an error saying name
is too long. Changing it to "manuscri.wri" worked.
I have not used it in years. I only copied it from Win3.x so I could
read old .WRI files.

I'll leave it installed though. It only uses 240K of drive space, so who
cares if it's there..... After all, I used to run Windows 3.1 on a 10
Meg HD, and still have lots of space left! When I got a 40 Meg HD I
thought I was set for life as far as drive space!

On Thu, 02 Jul 2015 02:32:05 -0400, wrote:

As for Windows Write, you just reminded me: sounds like the Win 3.1 days.
And I bet it's so old it can't even use long filenames (as just one
limitation), so it's best to forget that one.


When I play with the old Wordpad (98) files it talks about the Office
97 - 03 version of a DOC file when you open it in Office 2007 and try
to save it. The default on Wordpad (98) was DOC tho. I still have a
hundred or so that I have not changed to RTF and the XP version of
Word works fine (the program that it defaults to) but wordpad gives
you a bunch of those square boxes where the formatting should be.

If worse comes to worse, I'll put it on my XP laptop and just have them
plug a printer into my laptop computer.

I suppose one of these days I'll have to buy a printer again, but it's
been about 2 years since I needed anything printed. By now the ink would
have dried up. Thats why I dont buy them. They charged me about $2 to
print something from a flash drive a few years ago.

Il giorno Thu 02 Jul 2015 05:12:40a, *Mayayana* inviava su
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general il messaggio news:mn29vv$97t$1@dont-
email.me. Vediamo cosa scrisse:


Save it as RTF. You can write it in Wordpad or
Write. They're basically the same. It's what's
known as a RichText file.



or make a pdf file using a free tool

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
http://www.bb2002.it
............ [ al lavoro ] ...........

| or make a pdf file using a free tool
|

Yes, Libre Office can do that, which seems
like a more dependable format to bring to
a printer. As far as I know, RTF is a Windows-only
format. It requires a Windows RichEdit window
to be displayed. Maybe Mac Office can do it,
but that doesn't seem like a smart chance to
take when it's not necessary.

On 7/2/15 7:01 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| or make a pdf file using a free tool
|

Yes, Libre Office can do that, which seems
like a more dependable format to bring to
a printer. As far as I know, RTF is a Windows-only
format. It requires a Windows RichEdit window
to be displayed. Maybe Mac Office can do it,
but that doesn't seem like a smart chance to
take when it's not necessary.

Macs support RTF.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

| Macs support RTF.
|

Thanks. Good to know. I guess it's not so surprising,
given that the format is published and relatively easy
to use. Oddly, the Wikipedia page for RTF says Macs
had it first:

"The first RTF reader and writer shipped in 1987
as part of Microsoft Word 3.0 for Macintosh"

Ken Springer wrote:
On 7/2/15 7:01 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| or make a pdf file using a free tool
|

Yes, Libre Office can do that, which seems
like a more dependable format to bring to
a printer. As far as I know, RTF is a Windows-only
format. It requires a Windows RichEdit window
to be displayed. Maybe Mac Office can do it,
but that doesn't seem like a smart chance to
take when it's not necessary.

Macs support RTF.

http://web.archive.org/web/200803230...ext_format.php

"Preserves Basic Formatting

RTF will not retain complex formatting such as table
information, graphic alignment and pagination or macros.

However, it does retain font selection, font sizing, and
text styling (bold, italics, underline) and depending on
the application, font coloring.

For most common documents, this is more than enough
formatting. In fact, RTF is often used in the publishing
world as a format for rough drafts. Once the initial editing
is finished, the RTF is imported into Quark XPress,
Adobe InDesign, or some other page layout program for
final formatting.

This allows editors to focus on editing content, without
the distraction of too much formatting."

I think that sets the right tone, for the usage model.

I've had cases, where a tool that claims to import/export
RTF, will export a document, and then not be able to read
its own output. It's that fine as a standard of interchange.

I wouldn't touch a file with that file extension, with a
barge pole, Mac or PC.

Paul

On Thu, 2 Jul 2015 09:01:07 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

| or make a pdf file using a free tool
|

Yes, Libre Office can do that, which seems
like a more dependable format to bring to
a printer. As far as I know, RTF is a Windows-only
format. It requires a Windows RichEdit window
to be displayed. Maybe Mac Office can do it,
but that doesn't seem like a smart chance to
take when it's not necessary.


While I may try Libre Office at a later date, I need a SMALL program
that is free, to convert this same document to .PDF so I can email it.
My XP laptop dont have much drive space, and my desktop machine is
Win98se. Plus I dont really want to mess with a large and probably
bloated program. I just want something simple and small to make a .PDF.
What is available for free? (For XP or Win98).

Thanks

| While I may try Libre Office at a later date, I need a SMALL program
| that is free, to convert this same document to .PDF so I can email it.
| My XP laptop dont have much drive space, and my desktop machine is
| Win98se. Plus I dont really want to mess with a large and probably
| bloated program. I just want something simple and small to make a .PDF.
| What is available for free? (For XP or Win98).
|

Libre Office is free. Though it is also inexcusably
bloated. Somewhere around 400 MB installed and
it lumbers into action rather than starting up.

I don't know of any other tool for making PDFs.
If you don't find one then maybe you should just
call the printer and ask if they can deal with an RTF
file. Just don't name it as a DOC.