I want a word processing program with black backround

[grownup]

Ok, so you can change the backround of Microsoft Word to black if you want. But this laptop only has Wordpad. Wordpad is an excellent word processor if you like getting a headache at night with the stupid glaring white screen. Would it be too difficult for Microsoft to make the background black and the characters white? Apparently so. Gone are the days of black backrounds, like my lovely TRS-80 had.

Is there a downloadable word processor that I could get that has a black backround? Or do one of you have a vintage program you could sell me? A DOS program would be fine if there is a way to copy the files back to Windows. (at this time I dont know how t do that,even). Any suggestions or ideas?

[toptenmaterial]

I would look for an emulator if you could

[Krytol]

Ok, so you can change the backround of Microsoft Word to black if you want. But this laptop only has Wordpad. Wordpad is an excellent word processor if you like getting a headache at night with the stupid glaring white screen. Would it be too difficult for Microsoft to make the background black and the characters white? Apparently so. Gone are the days of black backrounds, like my lovely TRS-80 had.

Is there a downloadable word processor that I could get that has a black backround? Or do one of you have a vintage program you could sell me? A DOS program would be fine if there is a way to copy the files back to Windows. (at this time I dont know how t do that,even). Any suggestions or ideas?

 

What version of Windows do you have? I believe it's possible to customize the colors of all open windows at once. I just did this in Windows 7:

[+Random Terrain]

One solution would be to get astigmatism, then you wouldn't want a black background:

 

http://www.randomterrain.com/web-design-readability-and-backgrounds.html#blackbackgrounds

 

 

[jaybird3rd]

Is there a downloadable word processor that I could get that has a black backround? Or do one of you have a vintage program you could sell me? A DOS program would be fine if there is a way to copy the files back to Windows. (at this time I dont know how t do that,even). Any suggestions or ideas?

Just about all of the major DOS word processors I know of (such as WordStar and XyWrite, my favorite) have an option to change the screen background to black. Many of them also offer command-line parameters for use with monochrome monitors, which would usually change the background to black. You can often run them in Windows directly, but I'd recommend using an emulator such as DOSBox.

 

As for transferring your files to Windows, DOSBox would make this easy because you can "map" a drive letter directly to your "My Documents" folder using the "mount" command. Most DOS word processors have the ability to save files in plain text, which is a good intermediate format to use for transferring your data to a Windows word processor; all of them should be able to import plain text without a problem. XyWrite in particular offers lots of nice options thanks to the user-developed XyWWWeb library: you can create PDF files from within XyWrite (using Ghostscript), you can convert your files to HTML or Rich Text Format (using supplemental filters), and you can even make use of the Windows system clipboard from within XyWrite! Pretty impressive for a DOS program.

[Keatah]

For now you might experiment around with EDIT. Just open a command prompt and type edit.. You can customize everything to your hearts content as far as colors go. I don't think it's as good as Notepad, let alone Wordpad, because the basic wordwrap feature is missing. And it was made initially for editing autoexec.bat and config.sys files -- But maybe it will do till something better can be found.

 

Meantime, when you get up to speed on pushing files around you can try DosBox. Feast upon this screenshot from Windows 3.1 in DosBox, in winXP(or win7). Not shown is the highlighted selections and pulldowns which are in red. This is about as vintage as can be! Windows allows custom coloring. And with win 3.1 being so small and dicks being so big these days, You can easily afford to make a custom color setup however you want to. The whole install, with word, dosbox, and win31 came to be like a handfull of megs. I forget already, like 45 megs with the whole M$ Office Suite going..

I was also experimenting around with a program I'm putting together call GlowHead. This takes your dull LCD and puts the 70's CRT aura around the black/high-contrast areas. So the way it really looks in reality is a little bit more toned down. This is the maximum effect you see.

 

Well, If that isn't good enough. You can get a TRS-80 Emulator and run *this* on it.

Edited June 30, 2011 by Keatah

[Keatah]

One solution would be to get astigmatism, then you wouldn't want a black background:

 

http://www.randomterrain.com/web-design-readability-and-backgrounds.html#blackbackgrounds

 

 

 

It's all about image.

 

Black caddy, black jacket, black laptop, black hat, black lady, black shoes, black watch, black shirt, black rims, black windows, black desktop, black shades.

[+Random Terrain]

It's all about image.

 

Black caddy, black jacket, black laptop, black hat, black lady, black shoes, black watch, black shirt, black rims, black windows, black desktop, black shades.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_HlTGzkKeE&rel=0&fmt=35

[Hatta]

Can't you just change your windows theme to use dark colors? It should be application agnostic. At least, that's how I do it in Linux and Windows is supposed to be easier.

[Nukey Shay]

Every version of Windows allows you to alter the colors. Go hit the display's appearance settings.

[Rex Dart]

http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/

http://they.misled.us/dark-room

[high voltage]

Best WP which is easy on the eye is WordPerfect 5.1, dark blue screen, white text, it was a best seller way back actually.

Still cannot be beaten nowadays imo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wordperfect-5.1-dos.png

 

And it's a dream to use too.

Edited July 2, 2011 by high voltage

[grownup]

Thank you to everyone for all the great comments and advice. You guys are great. I decided to go with Nukey Shay's advise for now. I just changed the appearance settings. I had no idea this could be done! I simply went to help and typed in "appearance" and was given step by step instructions. Now I finally have what Ive always wanted: I am now typing with green letters on a black screen.