How do I open apple works documents?

Ok, this worked for me for an Appleworks word doc.

1. Highlight the file

2. right click and select "Other.."

3. scoll down until you find TextEdit in your list (it's a standard Apple Application) and select it

4. Click Open

you will get a bunch of 'mumbo jumbo' but if you look close you will see your original text inside there. Select it and copy.

Then paste it into whatever current word app you like.

At least you'll have the words and info you wanted.

What Gruvy Poet said worked well for me. I came here today having had OS 10 transform my old Appleworks files into "Unix Executable" files. Problem is, I don't access those files that often, so I didn't notice until now. I EXPECTED that continuing to update AppleWorks and iWork over the years would make my stuff backward compatible. In my opinion, that's exactly what it should have done. Anyway...

In my case I'm trying to get at fairly basic files with minimal formating. I do have some numbered lists and bulleted lists that I used for speaking. Gruvy Poet's method worked great, with only minimal editing of Unix "curse words"/gobble-de-gook. In one file, it literally transformed to it's former glory after pasting it into Pages and changing the font to Times. The gobble-de-gook disappeared on it's own.

For me this is going to be a very time consuming process. I have hundreds of files that need this treatment. This really should not be.

One more tip: if you click once on your file and then do "get info" (command "I"), then change the "Open with" dialog to "Text Edit", underneath there is also a dialog that says "Use this application to open all documents like this one?" and a button there that says, "Change all..." This will at least save you that time-consuming step on however many files you have to un-corrupt/un-sabotage.

Message was edited by: Larry Israel

You have run into a secondary problem related to the upgraded operating system which came with Mac OS X 10.6. Previously the Mac OS 9 and OS X up to 10.5.8 relied on metadata stored with each document, the file's type and creator codes to match them up with an application. Now, the operating system only uses file name extensions to link files to their creating application. Your AppleWorks files should have had a .cwk file name extension, which was not required then but offered. Even if you rename your files as xxxxx.cwk, that will help and the documents will not be considered UNIX Executable files. There is still the problem that there could be a few varieties of .cwk files on your hard drive. Some will be word processing types from AppleWorks, which could open in Pages, and orher .cwk files that were created with the spreadsheet module of AppleWorks, and these could be opened with Numbers and Keynote could open presentation type .cwk files. The operating system offers no way to search for these file type 4 letter codes that are probably still associated with your files. I suggest using HoudahSpot to help find them for you, so you can drag and drop the right files to the right new application. Otherwise it's a trial and error to find which is the corrent application. It could be neither if you created a painting or a drawing. A WP type file has the file type code of CWWP. By the way, the .cwk file name extension comes from the fact that AppleWorks used to be known as ClarisWorks.

I'm sure there are plenty people still coming up against this problem, so I'll give the simple answer to globally change your appleworks (v6) text documents to work in pages:

1. Select any appleworks word processing document
2. Right click on the file and select 'get info'
3. In the menu which appears, about half way down, click on 'open with' and select PAGES
4. Just underneath you'll see a checkbox labelled 'change all documents like this' - click this and you're done

Now all appleworks files will automatically open in Pages (or numbers in the case of spreadsheets)

This worked perfectly! I've been dragging my husband "kicking and screaming" away from Appleworks App. His old computer is wearing out and he has finally conceeded. This "answer" saved years of his appleworks files. Thank You!

I had my full family genealogy done in AppleWorks. Having just upgrading to Mavericks I found Appleworks files could no longer be opened. I discovered the latest version of Libre Office opens Appleworks files perfectly. Give it a try.

THANK YOU BILLYW!!!!!! I have Claris and Apple Works documents going back to 1996. Libre Office did the job! The text was terrific and kept the formatting--which is most important. OpenOffice didn't.

The only disappointment was the jpeg/png logo I use for the letterhead converted as white text on black background instead of the other way around.

I am never using any Apple text/number apps again and just deleted Pages and Numbers from the dock.

Hello everyone,

the free solution to open many old archives it's http://www.libreoffice.org

Enjoy it!

😉