WordPad is a basic word processor that is included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It is more advanced than Notepad but simpler than Microsoft Works Word Processor and Microsoft Word. It replaced Microsoft Write.

WordPad can format and print text, but lacks intermediate features such as a spell checker, thesaurus, and support for tables. As such, it is suitable for writing letters or short pieces, but underpowered for work that relies heavily on graphics or typesetting.

WordPad natively supports the Rich Text Format, though it does not support all the features defined in the RTF/Word 2007 specification. Previous versions of WordPad also supported the "Word for Windows 6.0" format, which is forward compatible with the Microsoft Word format^{[citation needed]}.

In Windows 95, 98 and Windows 2000, it used Microsoft's RichEdit control, versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 respectively. In Windows XP SP1 and later, it uses RichEdit 4.1, including Windows 7.

WordPad for Windows XP added full Unicode support, enabling WordPad to support multiple languages, but UTF-16/UCS-2 Big Endian is not supported. It can open Microsoft Word (versions 6.0-2003) files^{[citation needed]}, although it opens newer versions of the .DOC format with incorrect formatting. Also, unlike previous WordPad versions, it cannot save files in the .doc format (only .txt or .rtf).Windows XP Service Pack 2 onwards reduced support for opening .WRI files for security purposes.