Need to move my word files but can't access them after installing mountain lion.

If you were using Office 2004 or earlier, try a product such as OpenOffice before buying anything.

(71691)

Pages and numbers do open Word and Excel documents but complicated documents might not be perfectly converted.

LibreOffice is another free application to try

jenellefromsk wrote:

How do I get my files from ms word and excel after installing mountain lion? I would like to purchase pages and numbers but still need to access my word and excel files and hopefully transfer them over to pages and numbers. Word icon in dock looks like this.

Thanks.

Your last sentence. Do you now have a ‘?’ icon in the Dock that has replaced the Word icon? If so, you can remove it by clicking and dragging it out about 3 inches from the Dock and releasing. It means that the MS Word link from /Applications is broken, possibly because MS Word was "stepped on" by the Mountain Lion installation.

Whether you purchase Pages and Numbers, or download the free OpenOffice or LibreOffice, you will need to configure the default application to open the Word and Excel files. Once you do this, familiar icons will return.

1. In the Finder, single-right-click (or two finger tap) a Word or Excel file icon
2. Choose Get Info from the pop-up menu.
3. In the Get Info panel, find the Open with section.

   In the selector, choose the default open application name, or select Other... and navigate to /Applications to choose the correct application, if not listed in the selector menu.

   1. Pages or Numbers
   2. Writer or Sheet (OpenOffice or LibreOffice)
4. Drag the appropriate application(s) icon from /Applications to your Dock.
   1. If you install OpenOffice or LibreOffice, you may want to install their generic icon that launches a splash screen with options to open Writer, Sheet, Impress (Presentation), and Base (database).
   2. Looks like this:

jenellefromsk wrote:

Wow! Thanks! This totally helped! But I do have to go and do this for each individual doc that I want to keep right? Otherwise I'd have to purchase word 2008? I tried to do a screen shot of the icon but it didn't show up - it didn't have a "?" it had a circle with a line through it. But either way, this is a life saver for getting some of our important docs.

Wow is good. Glad to help, and thank you too.

The steps, in particular step 3a, assume you have installed the application(s) that process Word and Excel files. Then, you only have to perform step 3a once on a single, arbitrarily selected Word and Excel file. What is important, and I assumed you would notice, is the message below the application selector that says, “Use this application to open all documents like this one,” and the Change All... button. That button, by my omission, would allow you to open all other Word or Excel files with the adjacent application choice. All Word and Excel file icons would then change to the supported icon style of the chosen application.

You can also use the OS X feature called QuickLook, if you just want to peak inside these files to see content. Select the file icon, and then press the spacebar on your keyboard.