Need to use third-party programs to open files on your PC? Here's how to change file associations in Windows 10 and choose which apps open which file types.

Start with text editing software like Windows' built-in Notepad app, or other similar third-party apps like Notepad++. Right-click on the DAT file you want to open and select Open with from the ...

Notepad is also helpful for stripping text formatting when you copy content from Web pages into your own business files. To open Notepad quickly, you can create a shortcut for it on your desktop.

And Notepad defaults to margin settings that don’t accommodate a typical 80-column text file. If you want a quick hard copy of your plain text files, the formatting change may distract from ...