Appleworks Update 6.2.9

Hi Patty Anne,

Welcome to Apple Discussions and the AppleWorks forum.

AppleWorks uses supplied translators to read or write files in 'foreign' formats.

Try opening the .doc file(s) by launching AppleWorks, then:

Go File > Open...
In the Open dialogue, find the File Format menu, (which should be set to AppleWorks). Click and hold on the menu, then scroll to the bottom, where you should find two Word Windows items. Try the second one (Word Windows 97, 2000, XP, 2002) first. If that doesn't work, the .doc file was likely produced with an earlier version of MS Word (try the Word windows 6, 95 item), or the most recent version, for which you will not have a translator.

If you are unable to open the files, you might try downloading NeoOffice, a free (donations requested) open source office suite, which I've used for opening MS Word, MS Excel and MS Powerpoint documents.

Or, for less that $100, get iWork, whose component applications are capable of opening recent MS Office docs of these three types.

Once you've decided which application you want to use to open .doc files, go to the Finder, select one of this type of file, and press command-I to Get Info. In the Get Info window, go to the Open With... section and change the listed application to the one you've chosen. Then click the Change all button to associate all .doc files with that application.

Regards,
Barry

I downloaded NeoOffice with donation of course. It keeps opening it with Tables which puts a lot more columns in. I keep on clicking New Text document but to no avail.

Do you mean the document opens as a spreadsheet (NeoOffice Calc), or that it opens as a word processing document (NeoOffice Writer) with the content placed in tables within that document?



I have tried to follow the instructions in letter Opening Word after appleworks 6.2.9 update but get confused between which system folder is open. On my set it says 9 when I open Appleworks.

The Mac OS 9 desktop has the original rainbow coloured apple at the top left; OS X has a blue apple in that position. If you have started the computer in OS X, AppleWorks 6.2.9 (the OS X version) should be the one starting up by default, assuming your AppleWorks 6 package contains both versions. (To check, go to the Finder, open the AppleWorks 6 folder in Applications, then control-click on the AppleWorks 6 application icon in that folder and choose Show Package Contents from the popup menu. Open the Contents folder. You should find (three files and) three folders inside: Mac OS, Mac OS Classic and Resources. Mac OS contains the OS X version of AppleWorks 6 and aliases to three essential folders; Mac OS Classic contains the Mac OS 9 version (AW 6.2.8) and aliases to the same three folders (AppleWorks Essentials, Clippings and Starting Points). The Mac should automatically launch the version for the OS that is currently in use.

I'm not familiar with +"the instructions in letter Opening Word after appleworks 6.2.9 update."+

Regards,
Barry

Hi,

A variety of information here—I'll intersperse some comments (and rearrange things a bit for clarity).

For some reason, appleworks6 opens in OS 10.4.11 BUT there is a 9 on the white bar near the language flag. I assume the 9 indicates that Appleworks is operating in system 9 as opposed to system 10.

I don't think that 9 indicates OS 9. On my iBook, running AW 6 (with no document open) in OS 9 (in the Classic environment) the menu bar is grey, not white, and contains only the rainbow Apple logo, AppleWork's File, Edit, Window, Script and Help menus, an empty space, then the time and an AppleWorks icon (the Application menu) separated by a vertical bar. Clicking the bar toggles the Application menu display between icon only and icon followed by application name. My G3 iMac, running OS 9 directly, shows the same menu bar with AppleWorks 6 running and no document open. Note that the Input menu ("language flag") is an OS X only feature, and does not appear in OS 9.

I have done as you have directed but the pop up menu does not include anything resembling your "show package content" I have used the restore CD to give me another appleworks but nothing changed.

I'm mystified. What are the first five items in the popup menu when you do this? (The first word, or even the first three letters of each item are enough.) If you Get Info on the item (Click on it once, then press command-I, or go File > Get Info), what does the Get Info window tell you beside the category "Kind:"?

When I use NeoOffice, it opens in the New Document (writing) view. When I go and get the Word doc. a little square named table appears and as a result there is more lines on the doc. page. The document is a form with boxes in it and that may be confusing to the program. I know I got it right once but every since, the table thing appears.

It's possible the Word translator in NeoOffice doesn't handle the boxes well. I suspect the same would be true with a Word > AppleWorks translator as well, as, to my understanding, AW and Word handle inserted objects quite differently. The problem of differing pagination is at least partly due to different metrics between the same font in the Mac and Windows versions. I ran into that today with a form created in MS Word and opened in NeoOffice. This was a simple document with no inserted boxes or graphics. I haven't checked to find out if the filled in form went back to a single page on the Windows machine that it came from.

One of the letters I refer to is one that admits that after the update 6.2.9 one cannot get word. I followed directions to the letter but no go.

That may have more to do with changes to Word's file format than changes to AppleWorks. AW 6 was released in 2000, and most recently came with translators for Word (Win) 6, 95 and for Word (Win)97, 2000, XP and 2002. MS recently adopted a new file format for Word files, and AW does not ahve translators for that format.

If doing so doesn't raise any issues that cause discomfort, you might want to email me a copy of the file to check how it behaves with AW and NeoOffice (and some other applications) on my machine. My address is available in my profile—click my name beside this post to get there.

Regards,
Barry

For some reason, appleworks6 opens in OS 10.4.11 BUT there is a 9 on the white bar near the language flag. I have done as you have directed but the pop up menu does not include anything resembling your "show package content" I have used the restore CD to give me another appleworks but nothing changed. I assume the 9 indicates that Appleworks is operating in system 9 as opposed to system 10.

I believe that "9" is the Classic menu item that you choose to show or not show in the Classic preference pane in System Preferences. It has nothing to do with whether or not a program is running in OS 9, it just gives easy access to starting or stopping Classic.



The contextual menu you get when you Control- or right-click on the AppleWorks application icon should look like this:

Hi:
I have appleworks 6.2.4, I tried to find how to update but had no luck,
can you tell me how that can be done and a site that might give a recap of the upgrade and if it effects current data base items.

thanks, Greg

Hi Greg,

You can download the updater from this page. Note that the updater comes in several language versions, including two English versions. The one at the top of the list is the International English version. The US/North American English version is the link in the upper right corner of the page identified only by file size (15.8 MB).

A paragraph below the list of updaters for various language versions describes the main benefits of the 6.2.9 upgrades.

Regards,
Barry