PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic) Way OT - open Win 10 WordPad in landscape mode by default?

On my old computers, I often use WordPad for words, it used to open up in the full screen mode.

In Win10 it opens in the portrait mode, and my words don't fit without word wrap which makes it too long to fit all the words in one screen without a page down.

If I use landscape mode, it fits, and I can save it that way, but as soon as I open the file again it opens in portrait mode.

So does anyone know how to open it in either full screen or portrait mode by default?

If not, another recommendation for a very light on the resources, basic, instant loading replacement.

I'm still using an XP computer on stage so it doesn't matter, but some day it will reach it's expiration date and go kaput, so I want to head this off at the pass.

I don't rely on words unless the song is new, or if I get distracted in the middle of a song (like somebody coming up and trying to talk to me while I'm singing). It's nice to have them there if I get out of the zone.

Thanks,
Notes

the links are the result of a google search
i did not have time to test them at post time
having taken the time to verify sadly i can report they do not work in windows 10

WordPad alternatives
http://www.techshout.com/alternatives/2013/29/wordpad-alternatives/

Mike, I'm curious about this too. The question is about Win 10, your links are about Win 7.

Bob

Thanks.

It worked in Win 95, 98, XP, 7, and 8 but not Win10.

I liked WordPad because it is built into Windows, so it doesn't crash, it's light weight and loads immediately.

Now with Win 10 the seem to be making it more like a paper copy word processor.

I can view words in the landscape mode, save it that way, but when I reopen it comes letter and they don't fit.

I too googled with no results for Win10. Perhaps what MS sees as an improvement to WordPad is a liability to me.

I guess I should look for something else to open .rtf files that is screen sized instead of paper sized.

Any suggestions?

Notes

Notepad++ ?

Agreed, unless you own Microsoft Office, Word can open them.

Thanks. I don't think that will do.

I like to make the word fonts bold (Verdana) and the chord fonts small (Arial narrow and in red) so a glance can find what I need.

Perhaps the answer is when I'm done, print to pdf or PrintScreen and save as a gif or jpg

I've investigated quite a few WordPad alternatives but none of them seem to want to open in full screen. I suppose most people like WYSIWYG on a page image on the screen. But I've never been like most people

Notes

With a little effort you can change fonts, bold, etc, in Notepad++
just sayin

It has style configuration rules

Just thought of something Notes. Excel will do this. I'm not an expert with it but I have some projects at the office where I needed the result in landscape. Here's where it gets tricky. We work with a guy who is an expert with this stuff. He created macros for us one of which converts the Excel file to a Worddoc as landscape and it's somehow locked in. It even auto formats it so it won't word wrap, we need it all to fit on one page in landscape for printing.

If you simply reopen an Excel file you'll see all the cells and formatting and you don't want that. Excel is mostly for math based formulas for spreadsheets but it handles text too. If you don't have MS Office you can get Open Office for free. It's supposed to emulate all the features of Office, I'll bet you can do this in Open Office. They have a forum, maybe ask this question there.

If you don't know what a macro is think of it as a patch change in a DAW. You want to change all the parameters of a synth with one button push. A macro is the same, you write a script that includes multiple things you want done. Once it's written, you hit a hot key on your keyboard, the macro list opens, double click on one and voila' your screen goes crazy for a few seconds while all these changes are happening.

I'm getting a bit out of my depth here because I'm not the one who understands this stuff, the other guy does and I don't want to confuse you so this is as far as I can go. This is very tricky stuff but remembering what I do with Excel, someway somehow I know what you want can be done.

Edit: Another thing, Excel creates a "Workbook". Workbooks have as many pages as you want. Each page is called a Sheet. Each Sheet is simply displayed as a tab across the bottom of your screen. You could have say 20 songs loaded as Sheets and hit a hot key to bring any one of them to the front instantly. That way you only have to open the program once with your workbook file. Thinking further now I don't think the macro converts this to a Wordoc, it stays as Excel and I'm pretty sure the macro tells it to display the info only without all the formatting stuff visible.

Bob

Thanks, it wasn't obvious from their page.

And Bob, thanks for the Excel top.

Notes

With some apps, if you open the file directly from Explorer they will open sized and displayed exactly as saved but if you open them from within the app (viz. File Menu) they will reformat for the app display.

Paj
8^)

Thanks, but that doesn't work with the new WordPad (I just tried it).

I'm bogged down with gigs right now (tomorrow is my first day off in over a week) and as soon as I get some time, it's back to the replacement search.

Along with that, we learned two requests for a party tonight. Since there was no appropriate BiaB style for either, I had to do the backing track from scratch (drums, bass, and comp instruments). It's a labor of love thought.

I'll try Notepad++ first and then do a search for full page .rtf editors.

I forgot to mention, I sometimes paste a .gif or .jpg on WordPad (perhaps a line of music notation for a signature riff I'm supposed to play).

Microsoft may think it improved WordPad by making it more of a word processor, but for me it's worse.

I'm still running a 2002 Win XP ThinkPad on stage and also a Win7 one. ThinkPads last a long time so I have time to get this together. I'm just trying to avoid a disaster.

Thanks again,
Notes

Notepad++ won't allow the image part, as far as I know.
Maybe the Open Office alternative (?)

I wrestled with this a while back. Word will do what you want. Wordpad won't.

And a new enough version of Office where Word uses xml files, so rather than doc files they are docx. You can load them in, switch the view, save them off and they will stay landscape. I had recipes I gathered over the years and I have them in a notecard template. When I went to Office 2013 I had to load them all and resave them, but they DO open in landscape now. Of course that would require buying Office, and that's a lot of money for software JUST for that. If you don't do spreadsheets, Power Point and such, maybe not worth the investment. I got it when I was still working because I had to support it. Word is really powerful. It will do a lot of stuff Joe Average user doesn't ever use. Mail merge for mail list mailings and such.

I remember a job at a law firm. When Wordperfect was going away, the company switched everything over to Word. Rather than learn something new, over a dozen secretaries actually quit their job. That was how I felt when I had to change my recipe file to Word.

That's why I suggested Open Office earlier. It's supposed to do pretty much everything Word does and it's free. And another one I just thought of is the similar Office clone by Google. I know squat about that one but it could be worth checking out.

Bob

Silly question but have you tried +++ Microsoft Online +++ ? It's free and suppose to be 100% compatible with the desktop edition of Microsoft Office. +++ HERE +++ is a short review that covers the pros and cons pretty well.

The highest rated alternative is +++ Libre Office +++. The program is frequently updated and has a wealth of support available.

Thanks y'all.

I have a copy of Libre Office - the successor to Open Office, but it's slow loading. I'm used to the old WordPad opening almost instantly.

Libre Office takes from 7-10 seconds to open (depending on the file). I'm using version 4.5, I might update to version 5.5 and see if that helps.

Microsoft Word took 11 seconds.

This is way to long. If I make a decision in the last few seconds of a song for what to play next, a wait of 5 seconds between songs can be too much. Once they start heading off the dance floor and back to their seats, it's too late to keep them there.

I have found some 'full page' text editors and bookmarked them. We are very busy gigging until mid-March so if I don't find a solution by then, I'll make a fresh HD Image, and try them one at a time.

I don't mind learning new software (although I'd rather not) if it would make my work easier or do something I'd like to add. I don't like learning new software if it doesn't fill my needs, that seems like a waste of time. Thus the questioning first.

Thanks again,
Bob

The slow loading time is why I suggested you try Excel. Opening the program the first time takes a few seconds but it opens as a workbook. A workbook has sheets (individual pages) as tabs across the bottom of your screen, you may be able to drag those around, dunno. I've had as many as 15 sheets in a workbook and you can either tab them or one mouse click them and the sheet opens instantly.

I know this is primitive Excel 101, it's very powerful but I'm a total rookie with it. If you're interested I just Googled "Using Excel" in YouTube and pages of hits came up and now that I've seen all that's available, I should learn more about it too. I also searched Open Office Spreadsheet and it's the same. Tons of hits.

Bob

Thanks Bob.

Great advice, but not for me.

When I'm gigging, I'll have Windows Explorer up in alphabetical list mode. Type a couple of letters and hit enter and the song pops up. Alt+F4 and it's gone.

No mouse involved, and I can usually get a second or two of a free left hand if I'm playing sax, flute, or wind synth, and more often than not guitar.

I can even load a second song in the background, while ending the first one, Alt+F4 and the next one is up.

No mouse, no glide strip, no eraser head, means less time for my left hand if I only have a second or two.

I have well over 500 songs, so 500 tabs in Excel wouldn't work. I tried tabs in a notation app once, and that didn't work on stage for me. That's why I paste notation into WordPad.

I don't do set lists, I work the crowd, and often don't know what song I'm going to call next until the one I'm currently playing is almost over.

Especially if I'm doing up-tempo songs and the dance floor is full. I play for a baby boomer crowd most of the time, and between fast songs, if I take a second or two between songs, some people will head to their chairs and won't turn around when the next song starts. So I often run them together end-to-end like a DJ with a 'mix tape'.

I look at the faces. Do they want another? OK, I'll put another in cue (only takes typing a few letters). Do the men look tired but the women still want more? OK it's time for one of those 'dance jam' songs that the ladies like to dance to in a group. Do they all look tired, OK now it's time for one of those dances like a cha-cha or tango that the ballroom dancers live for. Everyone else can have a breather but I know the ballroom dancers will come out (you can usually tell which are the ballroom dancers by the kind of shoes they wear).

I might change my mind in the last two bars of the song.

Ok so left hand gets the next chart up on the left computer, then the right hand hits cues the next song on the right computer (while the first one is still playing in Media Player) and as soon as the song is done, right hand hits "enter" and the next one starts immediately.

My job is to study the audience, use my lifetime of experience to try to predict when the want more, what they want next, and how soon I need to get to it. I've gotten very good at playing the audience with all the practice I've had.

My goal is to give them a great time so that they have more fun than when other bands are playing, so that they stay longer and come back often.

We do a Tuesday gig in a 7 day entertainment venue (10 years now), and we draw the biggest crowd of the week - on Tuesday. Often people can't find a seat and either stand or leave. We even have a dozen or so who bring lawn chairs so that if all the seats are full, they have their own (it's outdoors at a marina, on a lagoon, with a beach past the deck). When the owners tell us we have the biggest draw of the week (including weekends) and pay us more than the other bands, it means I'm doing my job.

Of course Leilani is a great singer, I'm a decent singer, she plays guitar and synth, I play sax, flute, wind synth, guitar and synth, and the backing tracks I make myself are top-notch -- mixed for live performance so they work better than karaoke tracks.

And yes, the music is a very important part of the job, but it isn't the entire job. Performing is not a lecture, it's an emotional dialog between the band and the audience. I give to them, they give back to me, which allows me to give more to them which feeds back more to me - and so on,

Without the ability to work the crowd, and make spur of the moment decisions, the dialog wouldn't be that strong.

So what I'm looking for is something that I can mix fonts/colors on, open full screen (landscape is second choice), paste a line or two of notation (.jpg from a print screen cropped in my notation app) and open almost immediately with a couple of key strokes.

I love performing, it's the most fun I can have with my clothes on, and the more fun the audience is having, the more fun Leilani and I have.

Being on stage is not work, it's play. Sometimes I think of how lucky I am to be able to still do this past retirement age with the love of my life besides me and all that love coming from our 'extended family', the audience. And they pay me money for this (actually we play for free and charge to schlep the gear, learn new songs, and be the band salesman).

Every day we gig, I strive to give them a better experience. Every song I learn and sequence I try to do better than the last one, and I try to improve my audience skills.

I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world.

But that's drifting off topic. The tools today are different from the tools we had when I started. I used to tote a tenor in one hand, an alto in the other and a flute under my arm. As a band we lugged 400+ pound B3 organs and 'voice of the theater' speakers. Now we have lighter gear, and computers. Band-in-a-Box, a good DAW, synth modules, and WordPad (or whatever I replace it with) on the screen to jog my memory when it needs it allow the two of us to put out more music than some of the 5 or 6 piece bands I've played in.

There, did it get it back on topic?

Insights, incites and related musings by Notes

I totally understand Notes. I will do a OMB thing on occasion using a complex Korg arranger keyboard. Lots of things for both hands to do pretty much every second.

I'm just throwing things out that I don't completely understand. One is Apple iPad apps like ForScore or Gig Perfomer (something like that). What caught my attention is backing tracks AND charts AND midi files are all linked. You just select the song and BAM, it's all there.

I just know that there's something that will work for you but you may have to discover it yourself.

Bob