Microsoft Word and Appleworks

By buying a newer version of iWork or MS Office. Lion doesn't support Rosetta or PPC applications, which means that if you ran old applications on Snow Leopard, they can no longer run in Lion. Unfortunately, the only way out of this mess is to buy newer software.

Cheers 🙂

An alternative would be to get Apple's iWork suite as Pages, which will read both MS Word and AppleWorks.

cornelius

You can get iWork from the Mac App Store 🙂

I am getting a little confused Nikolai, Are you saying that Pages under Lion will be able to open AppleWorks documents? I thought that we had to convert all our AppleWorks documents before upgrading to Lion? Or have I got this completely wrong? I am just about to start converting 4000 files or so, but if I don't need to that would be great.

As far as I can see, Pages from the Mac App Store will open AppleWorks documents. I don't have any experience with AppleWorks, but you can check out this FAQ if you like:

http://www.apple.com/support/appleworks/faq/

I am not entirely sure, what will happen with your files if you do not have iWork when you upgrade to Lion. I'd recommend buying iWork before Lion, and DEFINITELY having a backup of all your files. This way, you should be able to see if iWork can open them, and maybe you should (just in case) try converting them to .pages, .numbers and .keynote, if it is possible. This, unfortunately, is as much information as I can give you.

Best of luck

🙂

I have Pages and Snow Leopard on a six week old Imac and it opens AppleWorks wordprocessing documents under Snow Leopard, with some exceptions: files which are password protected do not open. Numbers opens the AppleWorks spreadsheet documents, though it doesn't take the formulae through for the cells. I am not sure what app one would use to open the drawing painting, presentation and databases with that one can create in AppleWorks. I'm guessing the Keynote app opens presentations, but I have never used this file type in AppleWorks.

Thanks for the link, that doesn't tell me what I need to know though, no mention of Lion there, and I have posted a separate question to the Communities with regard to this. I would recommend not upgrading to Lion until one knows for sure whether one can open ones documents or not. Backed up or not, if you can't open them they're not going to be much use.

Joanna:

I don't use Appleworks, but I had been running Office 2004 in Sno. When I open those documents in Lion it launches Pages. My iWorks is a few years old. Got it when I bought my MBP which is 2008, but it works fine. You may be able to pick up an old verson online. It should work fine for both AW and MS Word.

😉 cornelius

Well it's good to know that it works for Office 2004, but I don't have that progamme.

I guess I just want someone to test it out with AW and tell me for sure. I will ask in the Apple Store what they know next time I go by. I don't think I need an old copy of iworks, as I have purchased Pages and Numbers which is really what I need. I have very little data in the other AppleWorks formats and I can save the few sketches etc as pdfs if needs be.

Thanks for the reply Cornelius 🙂

Maybe I can help a little. I used to have an iBook G4, and had to file paperwork for a finacial guardianship, for which I used Appleworks. Now I have a MacBook Pro running Lion and the latest version of Pages and Numbers from the Mac App Store.

It seems like the default in Finder for opening Appleworks (.cwk ) documents is Keynote. What you need to do is to select the document you want to open, and then go to "File>Open With" and select Pages if it's a document or Numbers if its a spreadsheet. Once you have opened it, you can save it as a Pages or Numbers document.

I have never had any problem opening an Appleworks document with Pages or Numbers. The only nuisance is that be default, Keynote tries to open them, and you have to select Pages or Numbers to actually open them.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Thanks for the clarification, Sue. I did not have any doubts that it would work, just that I don't use AW.

It's been awfully hot up here, but likely not as hot as where you are.

😉 c

Thank you Sue and thank you Cornelius. I can relax then and not convert all my documents in one go, I appreciate your help. 🙂

I'm a bit embarassed I don't know how to mark your answers as helpful, correct etc. Can you do it for me? I looked for instructions but can't find them. 😊

I used Appleworks because it is what was free on the iBook, and I used it for 3+ years before I got my MBP, so I'm fairly familiar with it and with how you need to open .cwk documents with Pages and Numbers.

It may actually be hotter where you are now--we are in the high desert, and have just started getting some monsoonal flow, which results in more clouds and some afternoon thunderstorms. So it's only 89° instead of the upper 90's we have been experiencing.