Post #1305482

2026-02-11 13:33 UTC

I thought the Notepad > Wordpad > MS Word progression was pretty much perfect. A zero complication plaintext editor, something with a bit more formatting, and outright typesetting for print. Granted I use a combination of Notepad++, Obsidian, and haphazard LaTeX venvs now so who am I to talk. I don’t represent most Windows users and especially not the Linux daily drivers. I’d like to think there’s still a lot of people in my situation. It says a lot that none of the reasons I like Notepad++ were brought into Notepad when they changed it. A copilot button in the place where I write immediate notes and edit batch files? What could possibly be the use case? I just need it to be able to open massive text files and have a decent search UI and that’s it

Replies (3)

@borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-02-11 15:35

I’m a huge proponent of LaTeX also, but I feel like it’s not that widely used outside of specific professional niches. The biggest issue I have with Word (and similar software) is the content generation _and_ typesetting being forced into the same interface. It just breaks everything all the time. I’d much happier using word if it only allowed you to type in an Edit mode, and only allowed you to change fonts and layout and stuff in a View mode, and the View mode changes weren’t reflected live in the Edit mode.

Open ##1305483
@davidagain@lemmy.world 2026-02-12 07:20

WordPad writes fairly clean rtf. Word writes incredibly bloated messy rtf. No, I don't want to use a .docx or .pdf generating library, I just wanna slap some strings together and have it come out ready to print yet editable by non techy users. I use wordpad to write my templates.

Open ##1305484
@ChristerMLB@piefed.social 2026-02-12 19:38

Pretty sure no type setter or graphic designer would use Word for anything else than making Word templates.

Open ##1305487