You experience problems when you open a Word 2000 document in WordPad

When you open a Microsoft Word 2000 document in Microsoft WordPad, your Word 2000 document may appear with incomplete or missing text, may contain square or strange characters, or may be missing specific formatting. Or, you may receive the following error message:

Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me):Microsoft Windows NT 4.0:Microsoft Windows 2000:

WordPad is a simple Word processor that is only compatible with the following formats:

• Rich Text Format (*.rtf)
• Word Document (*.doc) - Word 6.0 format only
• Text Document (*.txt)
• Windows Write (*.wri)

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods to open a Microsoft Word 2000 document in WordPad.

Method 1: Save As Rich Text Format (Recommended)

In Microsoft Word 2000, save your Word document as Rich Text Format. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open your document in Word 2000.
2. On the File menu, click Save As.
3. In the Save As dialog box, follow these steps:
   1. In the File name box, type a new file name for the Word document that you want to open in WordPad.
   2. Change the Save as type box to Rich Text Format (*.rtf).
   3. Click Save.
4. On the File menu, click Close to close the document that you want to open in WordPad.

When you open the Word document in WordPad, your document opens as you expect.

According to Word Help, when you save as Rich Text Format (*.rtf), Microsoft Word saves all formatting by converting formatting to instructions that other programs, including compatible Microsoft programs, can read and interpret.

For more information about file format converters supplied with Microsoft Word, click Microsoft Word Help on the Help menu, type rtf in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topics returned.

Method 2: Save As Word 6.0/95

In Microsoft Word 2000, save your Word document as Word 6.0/95. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open your document in Word 2000.
2. On the File menu, click Save As.
3. In the Save As dialog box, follow these steps:
   1. In the File name box, type a new file name for the Word document that you want to open in WordPad.
   2. Change the Save as type box to Word 6.0/95 (*.doc).
   3. Click Save.
4. On the File menu, click Close to close the document that you want to open in WordPad.

When you open the Word document in WordPad, your document opens as you expect. However, some changes may have occurred when the document was saved as Word 6.0/95.

For additional information about what happens when you save a Microsoft Word 2000 document as Word 6.0/95, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about what happens when you save a document as Word 6.0/95, click Microsoft Word Help on the Help menu, type save as 6.0/95 in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topics returned.

With WordPad, you can create and edit simple text documents or documents with complex formatting and graphics. You can link or embed information from other documents into a WordPad document.

You can save your WordPad files as a Word document, text file, rich text file, text file for MS-DOS, or Unicode. These formats provide you greater flexibility when you work with other programs. Documents that use multiple languages should be saved as rich text files.

To open a Word 2000 document in WordPad, on the File menu, click Open. In the Look in box, click to select the drive that contains the document that you want to open. Locate the document, click to select it, and then click Open. If you do not see the document that you want, you can click to select a different file type in the Files of type box. You can also open a document that you opened recently by clicking its file name on the File menu.