Microsoft Write

Not to be confused with Windows Live Writer.

"write.exe" redirects here. For the version included since Windows 95, see WordPad.

Microsoft Write

Screenshot of Windows Write
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	1985
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Successor	WordPad
Type	Word processor

Microsoft Write is a basic word processor included with Windows 1.0 and later, until Windows NT 3.51. Throughout its lifespan, it was minimally updated. "Microsoft Write" also shares the name of a commercial retail release of Microsoft Word for the Apple Macintosh and Atari ST which is otherwise separate from this program.

Early versions of Write only work with Write Document (.wri) files, which are a subset of the Rich Text Format (RTF). After Windows 3.0, Write became capable of reading and composing early Word Document (.doc) files. With Windows 3.1, Write became OLE capable. In Windows 95, Write was replaced with WordPad; attempting to open Write from the Windows folder will open WordPad instead. The executable for Microsoft Write (write.exe) still remains in later versions of Windows, however it is simply a compatibility stub that launches WordPad.

Being a word processor, Write features additional document formatting features that are not found in Notepad (a simple text editor), such as a choice of font, text decorations and paragraph indentation for different parts of the document. Unlike versions of WordPad before Windows 7, Write could justify a paragraph. Write is comparable to early versions of MacWrite.

Opening Microsoft Write documents (.wri)

LibreOffice 5.1 and newer releases should be able to open Microsoft Write documents (.wri). After successfully opening a Microsoft Write document, it can be saved in LibreOffice's native OpenDocument file format or another file format. LibreOffice achieves the ability to open Microsoft Write documents with the integration of an import filter called libwps, this is included with LibreOffice by default. Microsoft stopped shipping Microsoft Write when Windows 95 was introduced in 1995 (1995), replacing it with WordPad. Microsoft Wordpad stopped supporting their Microsoft Write document (.wri) format when Windows XP Service Pack 2 shipped in 2004 (2004).