opening microsoft works files

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

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I have some Microsoft Works files from a Windows machine that I would like to open on a Mac. The Mac does not have Word installed, only Appleworks. MacLink will not translate the files and nothing else seems to recognise them. Is there a standard way of accessing these files, or will I have to fins a machine with WOrd on it?

Thanks
 
Good Luck trying to open MS Works docs in any app other than MS Works. Even MS Word won't do that in recent versions. Your best bet is to open on a PC and resave in another format, perhaps as a Rich Text Format.
 
That's a real problem with Microsoft Works. Apart from the Rich Text Format, you could save it in an MS Word format, since you lose some formatting when saving as RTF. However if portability is important, just save it as a RTF since all OS X machines can read it.
 
That's why editors should be forced to publish the format of all their files, so that users can recover their data.
 
Dataviz Maclink Plus Deluxe 14 can translate several versions of Microsoft Works documents to Word, RTF, AppleWorks, and a few dozen other word processing and text formats. How successful the translation will be is at least partially dependent on the Microsoft Works functions/features that were used to create the file. But for for a word processor as simple as MS Works, the translation should be pretty good.
 
Never lost formatting when saving from Word to RTF myself, then again I don't use some of those nasty MS specific features of Word very often. Since Works doesn't even contain them, there shouldn't be any problem with saving those files to RTF.

Just another reason to utilize an industry standard format when saving files. RTF is the choice here.

Word X will open Works files usually, but if you have access to a PC with Works then it would be a bit easier to open them there and resave.
 
There are some Mac-oriented options available, BUT you will loose all formatting. What I can offer you is text recovery only.

If you can get a copy of BBEditLite 6.1.3 for Mac OS X, or any BBEditLite for that matter (O'Reilly, the publisher of computer books, does have a copy on their website for download), drag the Micro$oft Works file on the BBEdit icon (either on the Desktop/ in the Applications folder or the BBEdit icon in the Dock). BBEdit will allow you to view the text, but there will be garbage text present in various places. You can copy and paste the text to a new document for reformatting.

Another option is to open a terminal session, and navigate to the directory where the Microsoft Works file is located. In the command line, type: view [name_of_file] and be sure to include the file extension. View is the "text viewer" portion of the Vim unix/command line application; it will not allow you to modify files. You can copy and paste the text to a new document for reformatting.

The best option is to get a hold of a Borg machine (Windows) with the latest Borg Office and convert the file directly to M$ Word format or RTF. I did this recently for a letter of recommendation my previous employer wrote on my behalf for a recruiter.

Hope this helps.
 
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