Notepad, Paint, Calculator. The classic accessory programs included in Windows since who knows when. But they do more than you might realise.
Notepad:
Notepad can be a useful way of removing formatting from copied text (e.g. from Wikipedia) as any formatting is scrapped except spacing. Then you can copy and paste it onto your target document
Don’t like the default text looks (Courier New can look a bit harsh)? Click on Format > Font. I have mine set to Sergoe UI, the font used in Windows 8 UI.
Make websites (yes, really). If you know HTML/CSS you can create websites within notepad by writing the code. E.g.
Try this code in Notepad:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<head>
<title>Made in Notepad</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>I can’t believe you can do this in Notepad! You can also include images etc. as you can in specialised website builders such as Dreamweaver. However, obviously Notepad lacks the instant preview of such programs</p>
</body>
</html>
1. Save the document with .html at the end of the name e.g. “website.html”. That last bit is essential
2. Open the resulting file in your browser. Obviously the example shown above is very simple but it works. Notice that even the page title shown in the tab is marked as I assigned it as opposed to “Untitled Page”
Hint: You can also try Notepad++ which is more specialised for website coding
Time and date: I only just discovered this. By pressing F5 or going to Edit > Time/Date you can insert a date and time stamp (E.g. 10:40 PM 25/03/2015). You can then copy and paste as required
Paint
Paint has been updated slightly in Windows 7 but it still remains rather primitive as a painting program. But here’s some things you can do with it:
Use for taking screenshots. Press PrtScn next to F12 on your keyboard. This will capture a screenshot of your entire screen and copy it to your clipboard. Then open Paint and do Ctrl+V or Edit > Paste. The screenshot will be pasted into Paint. Then you can edit or crop it as desired and save. I use this a lot when making tutorials (http://fastertrack.com/hive/tutorials.html) as screen capture programs don’t allow you to capture open File menus etc as clicking the capture button closes the menu.
Set desktop wallpaper. This can be done in Windows Explorer as well. With an image open in Paint, click the menu to the left of File (Windows 7 version) point to Set as Desktop Background and click the option you want such as Fill to scale the image to fill the entire desktop
Crop: Use the Select tool and select the area you want to crop to. Then click Crop. You can also use Paint to resize images. The option is below Crop.
There are some basic shapes in Paint as well such as stars and speech bubbles.
Scanner/camera:
You can also use Paint as a program for scanning. This is actually easier than using Windows Fax and Scan and you can instantly crop/rotate and save the result.
1. Click the blue menu bar button top-left and choose “From scanner or camera” or (Alt+F, M)
2. You get the standard scanner dialog. Choose the colour mode you want and click Scan. The resulting image will appear in Paint for you to rotate, crop etc. Convenient.
For more information on using Paint press F1 when in Paint to open the Windows help.
Calculator
Just a basic calculator, right?
Unleash the power! Click View in the calculator window and you get all these
You can calculate, uh, all sorts of things. If you don’t understand the more complex equations just try Unit Conversion. Have a play.
Related reading:
Check out Askvg’s Did You Know guide
Computer Tips & Other Tutorials 
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