Any way to open AppleWorks .cwk files?

This is a blatant advert and may be removed from the discussions. However, as it's free software, I am currently downloading it to see if the claims made for opening AppleWorks documents is true. I will report back.

It does open AW files and also older CW. It even can or will be able to in near future to open the PICT files which is otherwise possible to open.

Very mixed results with LibreOffice, opening AW documents.

1. It opens WP documents in its Writer module fine, with the original fonts and formatting.

2. It opens SS (spreadsheets) also in the Writer module, as a complete mess - unusable.

3. It opens DR (drawings) also in the Writer module, but seems able to recognise individual vector and text frames, so they can be moved around (and re-sized?), so that's a definite plus.

I didn't try the database as I use FM Pro, nor did I try bitmapped PT documents - there are enough free or inexpensive graphics programs around so there's no need.

There isn't the perfect solution but allows to recover many old archives we was lost with the new features from Pages p.ex.

Yes, it is not perfect, but it seems to offer some hope for people with lots of old AW documents (as long as they aren't spreadsheets!)

I've just tried LibreOffice's Drawing module and it seems very capable - at least as good as the old AW Drawing module and probably better in many ways.

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Hello,

yes, actually, LibreOffice does not accept to recover any database, presentation and spreadsheet AppleWorks/ClarisWorks's files (and so it reverts to the basic filter with try to extract some characters).

Notes:

- I have added, in the third party filter used by LibreOffice, some code to try to recover the main content of database and spreadsheet files (as a spreadsheet file) ; ie. the floating value/formula/text which appear in the different cells ( but not the embedded graphic, textbox, filter, report ) ...

- the paint graphic are now exported as a draw files (and will no longer appear with a ridiculous size), but the drawing files still remain exported as a text files,

- I do not know when these changes will appear in LibreOffice (maybe in version 4.3 or latter)

- if you want to test the actual version, you can download the AppleScript's mwawOSX (which calls the third library to do the conversion) in https://sourceforge.net/projects/libmwaw/files/ , but it is also far from perfect.

Hi fosnola

I don't know if you should even bother trying to convert AW 'Paint' files? These are just bitmapped images and can be opened in any halfway decent graphics editor - if they were saved as 'PICT' format, I believe these can still be opened in a few applications?

I don't believe it matters that AW 'Drawing' files are opened in LibreOffice's 'Writer' module. As I observed above, the individual drawing objects are preserved, whether they are vector graphic frames, or text frames. If they need further manipulation, they can presumably be 'Select All' Copied, then Pasted into a new LibreOffice Draw document?

If people still have access to a working copy of AppleWorks, they can export Paint documents as PICTs, PNGs, TIFFs or JPEGs among others, Spreadsheets in Excel format, Documents in Rich Text, and the data (though not the formatting or calculations) of Databases in ASCII.

The problem most people in this situation are facing is that they have upgraded beyond Snow Leopard without exporting their documents, and now cannot open AppleWorks. LibreOffice appears to be the only way of accessing Paint documents, and databases cannot be opened by anything (other than by opening as text which will show all the formatting codes).

Hello again,

as a paint file contains only a classic header and a standard bitmap(*) and as I needed to retrieve embedded bitmap's content and convert them in another fomat ( in fact, in ppm), ... Now concerning LibreOffice 4.2, it must recognize almost all paint files(**) and convert them in a text file which contains this bitmap(***) .

Previously, as libmwaw can only generate text files, the only solution was to convert the drawing files in text files. Now, as it begins to generate graphic and spreadsheet documents, in some near/far future, I plan to change the code to generate drawing files as graphic files: this is more natural and will probably be must better when some graphics shapes appear on many pages...

(*) which shares the same format as the bitmaps which can appear as embedded bitmap in a text document, drawing documents, ...

(**) excepted some bitmaps which have less then 16 colours, this is corrected in the lastest version of libmwaw but not in the current version of LibreOffice

(***) with a very small size, ie. a bitmap which needed to be enlarged by a factor ~10 and which need to be copied in some other graphic applications if you want to modify them

WARNING: You may expirience problems with this conversion, as parts of your document may not show properly. I only suggest using this technique if all else fails.

If you open these files with TextEdit you can choose format, then make rich text. After doing this, save and then close the document and open with TextEdit again. Now you may now choose format, then choose make plain text. From this point onwards, you can now open the document with pages.

P.S. To choose which aplication to use when opening a document, right click and choose open with, then other.

Roger Wilmut1 wrote:

The problem most people in this situation are facing is that they have upgraded beyond Snow Leopard without exporting their documents, and now cannot open AppleWorks. LibreOffice appears to be the only way of accessing Paint documents, and databases cannot be opened by anything (other than by opening as text which will show all the formatting codes).

Except of course for continuing to run Appleworks 6.2.9 in Snow Leopard Server in Parallels; a $99 solution to be able to export your paint documents and database data while in Lion, Mt. Lion and Mavericks:

[click on image to enlarge]

More information here:

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

Installing Snow Leopard Server into Parallels for DUMMIES!:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=17285039&postcount=564

So, I just made the mistake, apparently, of thinking that after upgrading to Mavericks and buying Pages 5.2 from the AppStore, that I'd be able to open and convert all my AppleWorks 6.2.9 files to Pages. Not only does it not seem easy, going through each one, but Pages won't even open the most simple word processing file.

Firstly, when I enter Pages and choose Open, all files are greyed out.

Then when I change the default app for the .cwk file and try opening it, I get the message “let TWinn resignation.cwk” could not be handled because Pages cannot open files of this type.

What is Apple doing? Making us all switch to Word? I hate word! I want my AppleWorks back!

So, is there any solution out there, or is Pages just a worthless app?

IT is PAges 5.x that doesn't open AW WP documents. Earlier Pages versions do. Use the free LibreOffice to open you AW documents.

The current version of Pages cannot open AppleWorks files. If you previously had Pages on your Mac it should still be in the iWork folder and this will open AW6 Word processing documents (not other types).

If you don't have it you may be able to get the previous version of iWork in a box set from Amazon or independent retailers.

Failing that, your only option is to use Libre Office or to follow Michaels method above (if you are able) and install Snow Leopard on another partition or disk, or run it in emulation using Parallels. Please read his information very carefully before proceeding.