The Wordpad Glitch

It occurred to me awhile ago that, rather than trying to write a philosophical essay for each blog post, I could just write about the stuff I was doing. (Mostly this would involve listing the porn television shows I've watched and the Wikipedia articles I pored over). Then I promptly forgot about that revelation and this blog in general.

But I'm here now, so let me show you this neat thing I learned while drunkenly stumbling around the internet! It's called the 'Wordpad glitch', and it involves opening an image file (like a digital photo) in a program not designed to open images (like Wordpad). I've found that it works better with small images, but your mileage may vary.

First, you take an image file and open it in MS Paint. (suck it, Mac owners - this trick only works on Windows machines!) Click 'Save As'. Then click the 'Save as type:' area. You can then save your file as one of the top four options: Monochrome Bitmap, 16 Color Bitmap, 256 Color Bitmap, or 24-bit Bitmap. Click 'Save', and then when the annoying warning box pops up, click 'Yes'.

Once you have your image saved in the new format, right-click on the new image file and select Open With > Choose Default Program...

When the menu opens up, click where it says Other Programs and scroll down to Wordpad. Where it says "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" make sure the box next to that is unchecked by clicking on the box until the checkmark goes away. Then click OK.

Once Wordpad opens up, just select File > Save from the drop-down menu and close Wordpad down. That's it.

Open up the file in MS Paint again, and the 'Wordpad glitch' will have messed it up in some really interesting ways. (Note: sometimes the file is so messed-up it won't even open in MS Paint. Just pick a new image and try again.)

I've made it sound more complicated than it is, because I wanted to describe it step-by-step, but the point is that you can get some really interesting results.

Example:



Original photo.



Glitched version, after saving original as a 24-bit BMP and then opening and saving it in Wordpad.

I find it works best when the original photo is interesting to begin with. Also, photos of people sometimes come out really freaky, which is fun.