Can I batch convert AppleWorks documents to Word docs in Leopard?

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Level 1

22 points

Can I batch convert AppleWorks documents to Word docs in Leopard?

My mother has over 3,400 Apple Works (AW) docs and as she upgrades to Lion, she's going to switch to Office. Can I batch convert or automate this process? she has the "latest" version of Apple Works.

Here are my issues:

- Found set of AW files includes layout files that we're not going to convert.

- AW won't save in the same folder where I opened it. I have to navigate to a folder on every "save as."

I' m considering trying to write some macro to perform all the steps on each file if I can resolve some of the issues - especially the issue of choosing a folder to save the new file...

I'm sure there are other issues, but I thought I'd ask - has anyone done this successfully? Any suggestions? Any idea where I could look?

Thanks!

Posted on Nov 20, 2011 4:37 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Texas Mac Man

Level 8

46,851 points

Nov 21, 2011 5:59 AM in response to eric d

Haven't used it, but check out One Click Convert http://www.panergy-software.com/products/OneClickConvert/ You can download a free trial copy.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

245,339 points

Nov 21, 2011 11:00 AM in response to eric d

iWork can import many of the AppleWorks files.

"iWork '08 can import Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and AppleWorks® word processing, presentation and spreadsheet files, and can export documents in Microsoft Office file formats or PDFs for easy sharing."

http://lowendmac.com/mail/mb07/0815.html

http://www.macworld.com/article/139286/2009/03/convertappleworkstoiwork.html

OpenOffice DB...

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=32523

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Answer 3

eric d Author

Level 1

22 points

Nov 23, 2011 1:52 PM in response to eric d

Thanks all for your tips! "Texas Mac Man" - you got me to the right company! Panergy Software had just the right tool for me. It's called Doc X Converter. I haven't used it yet, but I emailed with their tech support and I understand that it will batch convert Apple Works and Claris Works files to .rtf files, which, of course, will open fine with any version of Word. (They no longer sell One Click Convert.) However, it'll only convert the word processor files.

icWord will allow you to view the file right away, but I'm more interested in batch converting them all and then doing away with the old Apple Works and Claris Works files.

If I understand it correctly, Pages will open only Apple Works files saved with the most recent version of Apple Works and then you have the issue of batch converting or automating the conversion process.

I think (and hope) that Doc X Converter is the answer for me!

Thanks, Texas Mac Man, for pointing me in the right direction!

eric

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Answer 4

Nov 23, 2011 2:30 PM in response to eric d

Thanks for the info. May help another user that wants to do the same conversion.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 5

Jan 3, 2012 3:01 AM in response to eric d

I tried. I dropped a document made in ClarisWorks 1 on the app and got the answer that it can't be converted. bbut the application never say it should work either, it just say it will work with .docx and .xlsx files.

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Answer 6

fern2nd

Level 1

0 points

Feb 16, 2012 7:01 PM in response to John Eriksson

Sorry Texas Mac Man. DocX will NOT convert any ClarisWorks documents.

These materials will be lost - forever - unless they are converted - one at a time - to another format. And to think that Apple is doing this to users of Apple products! By contrast, the current version of MS Word will open a Word document of any vintage.

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Answer 7

a brody

Level 10

84,049 points

Feb 17, 2012 5:07 AM in response to eric d

If you can get a copy of Dataviz Maclinkplus (no longer produced), it will do batch conversions. I have a copy, but my time is valuable. You can see how to reach me on my profile. This document explains how to deal with the various Appleworks formats:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2522

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