I'm pretty sure that Notepad produces text only files, so this is useful for editing basic text stuff (like Autoexec.bat and config.sys on your PC), whereas WordPad is a cut down word processor - like a Mini Word, so you can save in Rich Text Format, and have things like bullet points.

Notepad is a very simple text editor.
It doesn't handle stuff like fonts, colours, layouts etc.
It can only handle small files.

Wordpad is more enhanced, dealing with colours and fonts and layouts.
It can save in .doc format, which is not the same .doc format that MS-Word uses. Just to be confusing.

If I remember correctly, Notepad has shipped with every version of Windows, whereas I think Wordpad was not present in the lower-specced early versions.


They're not "different applications in word".
Word is an application which is usually shipped as part of the Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works packages (probably others too).

Word is an application, just as Notepad and Wordpad are applications.



I use Wordpad in preference to Word for a lot of stuff - it's faster, more reliable, and doesn't try to take over the planet.

It does mildly annoy me when somebody edits one of my Wordpad documents using Word, and then sends it back to me assuming that "everybody has Word". I don't have Word on my home machines.

Word makes even trivial documents huge. And it isn't backwards compatible. Once Word has been near the document, you have to use Word to see it from then on.
Anybody doing that is likely to get an .ODT file from OpenOffice in reply!

The very simple text editor Notepad came first; it can only handle the .txt format. WordPad came later, and it is at least a simple word processor, i. e. it offers more text formatting options and you can use it to write a letter to your granny.