reinstall Leopard with original disc

You don't need to do this. LibreOffice will open Appleworks documents, though it cannot save them in that format (you could save them as pdf's after editing in LO if you need to).

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/

I use v6.0.11 which isn't listed here, but 6.0.7 is which should work ok?

https://www.fosshub.com/LibreOffice-old.html

Cool!

But it's also worth remembering that Libre Office will open an astonishing array of old document formats - these are just SOME of the Word Processing formats:

jackiefb wrote:

my newer MacBookPro wouldn't mount some of the old CDs that were used for backups long ago (unreadable), whereas the older laptop can now that I have it set up to match the era of those CDs.

If that data is important to you, and you don't have it anywhere but on old CDs that can only be read by an old laptop, you need to export that data/those files onto - e.g. - a memory stick that your new MBP can read. It never ever hurts to have multiple backups of important data.

👍

You should be able to boot to the Snow Leopard DVD by holding down the "C" key immediately after hearing the startup chime.

It may be that your internal optical drive is not working as well. Have you tried using an external USB optical drive?

Do you have another Intel Mac where you could install Snow Leopard into a Virtual Machine (I'm not certain if it is possible to use Snow Leopard in a VM)?

The OP did say that had the original Leopard disc… and no mention of the preferred Snow Leopard DVD.

The Snow Leopard Server DVD does support creating a VM Guest. Not true of the regular SL DVD. And then, it depends on whether it remains a supported guest operating system at this point on the respective VM product.

LibreOffice v4.2 supported converting some text and graphics files in CW 5/AW 6. LibreOffice v4.3 added some conversion support for AW 6 spreadsheets and databases. That support remains in the current 25.2.2 release (requires Catalina) of LibreOffice.

The caveat with LibreOffice is your conversion results decline as a function of how many AW tools were used in the AW document. I can convert a text-only AW 5 or AW 6 word processing document (as I have done here) with acceptable results. Ideally, one has purchased a Snow Leopard Server DVD, installed that into the free (not Apple Silicon) VirtualBox guest. Boot into that SL Server guest and then download the full DMG installer for AppleWorks 6 6.2.9. Then, review your document export options in AW 6.

VikingOSX wrote:

The OP did say that had the original Leopard disc… and no mention of the preferred Snow Leopard DVD.

Since it was a 2010 model, I was assuming it shipped with Snow Leopard.

The Snow Leopard Server DVD does support creating a VM Guest. Not true of the regular SL DVD. And then, it depends on whether it remains a supported guest operating system at this point on the respective VM product.

Thanks, good to know.

jackiefb wrote:

I have now installed iWork 09 from the original disk but it will not open. "Pages cannot be opened due to a. problem. Check with the develop to make sure Pages works with this version of Mac OS.....". Sigh. Maybe I will try LibreOffice.

Was this trying to open an AW document? I seem to remember from long long ago that I had something similar, and had to apply an update to iWork, and then it worked, Sadly I don't think Apple do software updates on their Support page anymore but you could try the Internet Archive.

Three thoughts

1) It’s not obvious how you erased the drive. It appears that High Sierra’s recovery volume is still present. Recovery volumes became the norm somewhat later than Leopard. You may want to research how to fully erase the hard drive and create a single volume. Disk utility will not show the presence of the Recovery Volume but terminal commands can be used.

2) You may want to consider resetting the PRAM. I have found that in going back to Snow Leopard from High Sierra, a newer OS, the newer OS PRAM setting may not be compatible with the older OS

3) Finally around 2010 it’s my understanding that Apple issued a firmware release for Mac Minis which had some effect on the ability to work with the original DVD. I do not know the details, sorry, but you may want to research and see if such an activity existed for your MacBook.