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help! I can't open 2 word docs from 2003 on MacOS Catalina 10.15.6

Anyone know how to open an antique doc on Catalina? Would greatly appreciate help.

  • When I click on the blacked out file icon on my desktop, I get a popup that reads (I tried the link to apple that it suggests, but was totally confused & worried that I'd create a mess of the rest of my files):


Last login: Fri Jul 31 14:37:00 on ttys000


The default interactive shell is now zsh.


To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.


For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.


/Users/Daal/Desktop/Daal/aa\ writing\ stuff/Letters\ to\ MM\ \&\ PP/MM ; exit;


Daals-iMac:~ Daal$ /Users/Daal/Desktop/Daal/aa\ writing\ stuff/Letters\ to\ MM\ \&\ PP/MM ; exit;


-bash: /Users/Daal/Desktop/Daal/aa writing stuff/Letters to MM & PP/MM: cannot execute binary file


logout


Saving session...


...copying shared history...


...saving history...truncating history files...


...completed.


[Process completed]

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 31, 2020 3:06 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jul 31, 2020 3:31 PM

Stay out of the Terminal with documents that have a black and green exec icon. They are not executable in the Terminal, it is Finder's way of telling you it cannot find an application to open the file.


The best fall back for Word documents that do not open by other means is to use LibreOffice, which I know for a fact, will open a well-formed, but ancient Word .doc from 1997. Save as a .docx. Once the document is saved from LIbreOffice, it can be opened in anything that opens Word .docx documents.


Apple's Pages will simply tell you it cannot open the document for some reason if it is too old, or not a proper Word document.

6 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jul 31, 2020 3:31 PM in response to da-AL

Stay out of the Terminal with documents that have a black and green exec icon. They are not executable in the Terminal, it is Finder's way of telling you it cannot find an application to open the file.


The best fall back for Word documents that do not open by other means is to use LibreOffice, which I know for a fact, will open a well-formed, but ancient Word .doc from 1997. Save as a .docx. Once the document is saved from LIbreOffice, it can be opened in anything that opens Word .docx documents.


Apple's Pages will simply tell you it cannot open the document for some reason if it is too old, or not a proper Word document.

help! I can't open 2 word docs from 2003 on MacOS Catalina 10.15.6

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