John Bonn
Level 1 (23 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Convert/Open Legacy Word Processing Documents

As a long-time (don't ask) Mac user, I have utilized a number of Word Processor Apps over the years - MacWrite-Writenow-Appleworks - before settling on Word & Pages.

 

I have a number of documents from the late '80s & the 90's that I can no longer open.

 

I can seek out what was written using TestEdit/LibreOffice but cannot obtain any formatting etc - & it is quite a chore.

 

Here is what the icons now look like: Screen Shot 2016-02-03 at 1.37.56 PM.png

 

Any ideas from the community?

 

Thanks!

…John

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 3, 2016 10:42 AM

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John Bonn

Q: Convert/Open Legacy Word Processing Documents

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  • by a brody,

    a brody a brody Feb 3, 2016 1:11 PM in response to John Bonn
    Level 9 (66,781 points)
    Classic Mac OS
    Feb 3, 2016 1:11 PM in response to John Bonn

    You can try http://www.zamzar.com/

     

    I offer conversion services with my copy of Maclinkplus*.

     

    http://www.macmaps.com/

     

    * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

  • by fosnola,

    fosnola fosnola Feb 3, 2016 11:49 PM in response to John Bonn
    Level 1 (126 points)
    Feb 3, 2016 11:49 PM in response to John Bonn

    Hello John,

    - TextEdit has no filter for such old documents, so it will only by able to retrieve the text (with some old character),

    - concerning LibreOffice, I suppose that you tried with a recent version of LibreOffice. If so and if you have documents which do not contain any confidential data, I may be interested to see some (to understand why the LibreOffice's filters does not recognize them), you can find my email at http://www.loria.fr/~alonso/ .

  • by christopher rigby1,

    christopher rigby1 christopher rigby1 Mar 12, 2016 10:48 AM in response to John Bonn
    Level 4 (2,146 points)
    Mar 12, 2016 10:48 AM in response to John Bonn

    LibreOffice DOES open AppleWorks documents. It may also open older ClarisWorks documents? But if not, you may want to try the Emaculation site, which shows three different emulators for running old Mac OS - Sheepshaver for OS 8 & 9, Basilisk for System 6 & 7, and MiniMac (?) for older than that. I can open MacWrite in Sheepshaver running 8.6

  • by christopher rigby1,

    christopher rigby1 christopher rigby1 Mar 24, 2016 5:16 AM in response to christopher rigby1
    Level 4 (2,146 points)
    Mar 24, 2016 5:16 AM in response to christopher rigby1

    A further note - I created a formatted MacWrite II document (different fonts / colours / justifies etc) in Mac OS 8.6 and exported it to OS X. Libre Office opened it with all formatting in place apart from one font - Desdemona - which I didn't have in OS X. Since then I've downloaded Desdemona for OS X and now the document opens in LibreOffice exactly as formatted in 8.6