Recover a WordPad document transforms into a Word document and I don't have the office suite.

[hughbob]

I have an older HP Envy m6-1125dx.  Primarily used for email, photo storage, and an occasional letter.  When the Microsoft Office Suite period ended, I didn't renew it.  So I have used WordPad for my few letters, some of which I did not delete. when done.  Now I go back to retrieve one of those old letters and find that the letter was somehow transformed into a Word document - and I can't access it since I don't have Word.  WTH?  Any ideas on getting my docs back into WordPad?

[banhien]

@hughbob 

Wordpad is still there on your machine. You can open Wordpad and then read old Wordpad files.

Other option is to set Wordpad as default for ALL Wordpad files first otherwise Windows will open them as Word using the following way.

          https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-default-apps-windows-10

From now on, old Wordpad files can be opened in Wordpad.

Regards.

[Lil_Boy_Blue · Accepted solution]

Hi

Free office Suites/Word processors is in double figures.

https://www.techradar.com/best/free-office-software

The best is probably LibreOffice, a smallish alternative is AbiWord.

So you should be able to achieve everything you want with LibreOffice.

[hughbob]

I must be ignorant as well as 'older'.  The link provided is correct up through selecting "system"  However, there is no 'default apps to select.  Now under 'settings', you can select 'Apps' right below 'system' and default apps are included there.  But I just don't see the path to change from there. 

I know you say the docs are there in Wordpad and that is true for a while after I create it.  But at some point, I can't see it on Wordpad, yet find it as a Word file and unable to do anything with it.  I tried to print, nope; change, nope; and copy and paste back to Wordpad, nope.

I think I need remedial training!

[banhien]

@Lil_Boy_Blue 

That's true  LibreOffice is good. I don't have Microsoft Office on all my machines, therefore I have to use LibreOffice on some machines and from my view, it is the best free Office suite.

Regards.

[hughbob]

I'd be happy to download the app, assuming I could 1) know how to open one of those Wordpad created, now Word documents in the new app and save it there; and 2) figure out how to make it the default app for future word processing documents.  The link the gentleman provided above doesn't get me there - yet anyway, so will continue to work on it.

Thanks for your support!

[hughbob]

And thank you for your help!  Sorry, I forgot my manners earlier.

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

During installation (even afterwards) there is a choice of making LibreOffice the default to open certain file extensions and this link may well give some guidance....

https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/install-howto/windows/

EXAMPLE:-

1.6 File Type

Another dialog box opens, inviting you to choose whether to open Microsoft Office documents with LibreOffice. By default, this feature is not enabled. If you want LibreOffice to open Microsoft Office files (documents, spreadsheets and presentations), put a checkmark in all four checkboxes.

If in doubt please ask.