what is the difference between microsoft word and word pad? Is it the same thing?

Word and wordpad are not the same thing.

They are both word processors, and can both read .doc files (wordpad sometimes has problems reading .docs made from Word), and they both can use rich-text formatting.

Word, however, is a much more robust tool.

It gives you MUCH more flexibility in how your document looks and what it contains.

So if you have a choice, use Word.

If you don't have Word, and just need to read a .doc, or need some basic bold/italic/underline/etc, you can get by using wordpad.

Short answer: no, they're not the same. But! If you're just writing an essay, or something that's strictly text, you should be able to do it in Wordpad and have it come up in Word. Save your document from Wordpad as a rich text file (.rtf).

Or, another, perhaps better way, is to download Openoffice (openoffice.org). It's free, is about 95% compatible with the MS Office suite, and you can save the documents as Word documents (.doc).

Wordpad is basically a simple word-processing tool. In simple English, it's what you use to type if you don't want to spend money on an office suite. With that said...

MS Word is part of an office suite, MS Office, with many more features that MS doesn't want to provide for free.

As for your report, you can use wordpad, but you;ll need to be your own spellchecker.

Or... www.openoffice.org

Wordpad is preprogrammed into your computer when you purchase it and Microsoft Word isn't. Word and Wordpad are on almost every computer, but I recommend using Word if all possible since almost everyone has it and it has more features than Wordpad.

Some big differences between the tools packaged in the program. Examples may include dictionaries, grammar rules, formating tools, etc.

The only time a school should request Microsoft Word is if the course is teaching Microsoft Word and in that case you have to have it. I would go to the computer lab and use one of their computers.

If not then you should be fine with whatever you use for word processing provided you meet the formating requirements put forth by your teacher (e.g., font type, spacing, margins, etc.).

Good luck.

mmmm idk?????? microsoft word has more stuff than word pad?????? duh>.......