~ POWER PC APPLICATIONS NO LONGER SUPPORTED ~

What version of Office are you using? It must be 2004 or older, which are old apps compiled to run on Motorola PowerPC chips, which no Mac has used in a long time now. Support for PowerPC apps was eliminated in Mac OS X 10.7 (aka Lion). You need to upgrade to a newer version of Office, or replace it with something else like Apple's Pages or the free OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

You can access those files with Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, or you can buy the newer version of Office (2011), or you can use OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or NeoOffice.

You will never get your current version of Office to run on your Mac with Lion or Mountain Lion OS.

You suggest upgrading, but as I cannot access my files, how do I do that?

You would have to buy a newer copy of Office and install it. Or delete the old Office and replace it with one of the other options I mentioned. (Google will help you find OpenOffice and LibreOffice.)

Note that recent versions of Pages should be able to open any Microsoft Word files that you receive, though it may not always display them exactly the same as Microsoft Word would. (Of course, the same is true of Word for Mac, to a lesser degree... a document made with Word for Windows may use fonts that are not present on the Mac, for example.) Pages can also export to a Microsoft Word file.

Well then you're going to have to dig in and tell us what version of Office you have. Office X and Office 2004 were not supported on Lion or Mountain Lion.. If you had Office running on Lion, then it was either Office 2008 or Office 2011.

If you actually have Office 2008 or Office 2011, then something is really confusing your Mac.

So let me say that in actual fact my version of office Has been supported by 'Lion'

Find the Microsoft Word application in the Applications folder in the Finder and select it, then choose File -> Get Info. What version is it?

Also I have the most recent version of iPages, and it will NOT open MS docs!

Do the same for Pages. What version is it?

Also, note that Pages can only open .doc or .docx files... you're not trying to open Excel or PowerPoint files using Pages are you? You would need Numbers and Keynote to open those. Or one of those free Office clones I mentioned.

Derek King wrote:

Hi Thomas

You are still here! That's excellent, thanks.

OK. I have followed your instructions ( this took me into an area I have never been!) and the information you asked for is:

MS Office 2004 v 11.6.6 (111104)

iPages Work '09 v 4.2

Does this help you in resolving my problem?

Kind regards, and I hope you have a good evening

Derek

You have Office 2004, this is a PPC program and is not supported on Mountain Lion (10.8.x) it was not supported on Lion (10.7.x) either.

You must replace Office 2004 with a newer version (2008 or 2011) or download a free replacement, Open Office or KingSoft Office are my preferred ones.

Your version of Pages should have no difficulty opening Word files, what happens when you try?

Derek King wrote:

Hi there Thomas

That was quick! You are still up! And then I realised you are in Ohio - is it good morning?

Let me say if I may, that, this is rather confusing! This version HAS been working on Lion up until a recent software upgrade! Strange isn't it?

However, as we know, it's not working now!

There is something even more strange going on here Thomas, I tried earlier today to open MS word files with iPages as you suggested, and my system refused, it came up with the same message I posted in my original post.

Now when I hace just tried, iPages opens them!

What the **** is going on? Have you any idea?

Cheers Derek

PS : It's late here in France - so I'm off to bed! Catch you tomorrow.......

Sleep well Mon Ami, I will pass your best wishes to Thomas as I am not he.

This version HAS been working on Lion up until a recent software upgrade!

You must be mistaken. You're probably confusing Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), as Office 2004 worked in Snow Leopard but absolutely will not, under any circumstances, on Lion or later. In any case, the fact that you have Office 2004 confirms that you must replace it with something else in order to open Word files in Mountain Lion.

I tried earlier today to open MS word files with iPages as you suggested, and my system refused, it came up with the same message I posted in my original post.

Now when I hace just tried, iPages opens them!

Sounds like you probably were still trying to open them with Word, rather than with Pages.

Workarounds:

1. Revert your Mac to the older version of OS X;

2. Partition your hard drive or add an external hard drive and install Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) and use the "dual-boot" system to run Word 2004;

3. Upgrade to Office 2011 or use alternative programs; or

2. The solution I use: Install Snow Leopard (and Rosetta) into Parallels 7 or 8 and be able to run Word 2004 concurrently with Lion:

[click on image to enlarge]

Full Snow Leopard installation instructions here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439