Any way to open AppleWorks .cwk files?

dereklep wrote:

Crazy, but a two (2) page document opens as a 93 page document. After looking at lots of pages like this[

##!###Ω####]

the original in there on pages 72 and 73.

That's because, just as TextEdit would, it's opening the file as if it were a plain text file and showing all the invisible formatting codes.

LibreOffice will open AppleWorks files, even old ones. You can then save them again as an .ods, .odt, .doc, .xls or several other types.

There is an entirely different method to Open files with the dreaded .cwk file suffix, but it requires the use of the Devil's Seed, MS Word...

In the Finder, click on the filename to highlight it. Now deselect and select just the suffix ie .cwk

Change “.cwk” to “.doc” (Don’t forget the dot.)

Deselect it, (you will get a dialogue asking if you want to change the extension from .cwk to .doc. Click “Use .doc”

You will now get another dialogue box headed “Convert File”.

Scroll to the very bottom, and there is an option “Recover Text from Any File.” Select that, and click “OK”.

You will get another dialogue box, saying “this file needs to be opened by the Recover Text from Any File …… etc…”

Click OK.

It will Open in Word. Remove all the extraneous crap before and after the actual copy, and Save As a new version, .docx I believe.

Works for me, including with 150 page documents.

This article http://www.cultofmac.com/248546/convert-system-os-9-appleworks-6-files-to-os-x-p ages-files-os-x-tips/ solved the issue. If you download and install LibreOffice it can open the files. It is a free open source program.

This worked for me.

If you will read the other posts in this thread (& several others in this forum as well as the Pages forum), you will find that there is no need to use Microsoft Word nor have to deal with the "extraneous crap." Use LibreOffice. It can open many, but not all, types of AppleWorks & ClarisWorks documents.

For what it's worth: Open Pages - click on "open an existing file" - choose what you want to open, click - "save" it - delete old .cwk from your file.

This worked when I got the error message "Apple Works document is not a presentation".

Yes, but not with the current version of Pages. The ability to open AppleWorks documents has been removed. For that you need Pages v4 (This version is contained in the iWork '09 box set which may still be available from Amazon and other independent retailers.)

I just checked and have the '09 version, hadn't thought to look that up. Still have Office for Mac 2011 with updates. So if I get the latest version just out, that will cause this problem? If I convert to Pages as above, will that prevent the problem?

Realize I was garbling iWord and Office. Anyway, will my converted-to-Page docs be opened in v5 of Pages?

If you've converted an AP document to Pages 4, then Pages 5 will open it, converting it to Pages 5 format in the process (at which point of course Pages 4 won't open it).

Pages will open AppleWorks 6 word processing documents, if there open with AppleWorks 5 it don't works.

Pages v5 - the current version - will not open any AppleWorks documents.

Roger, in an update to your article, Abandoning Appleworks, you suggest:

LibreOffice can now open at least some Database documents, which it does in the form of a spreadsheet. In order to transfer a Database into other programs you have to save it as ASCII text (or select all and copy your records and paste into a plain text document, which comes to the same thing). Obviously in the process all layouts, text formatting and calculations will be lost. There is no workaround for this: you can transfer data but you will have to build the database itself again from scratch.

But isn't that always true of exporting data from an Appleworks database file? That is, it will always lose "all layouts, text formatting and calculations" so that this statement is superfluous?

BTW: I am aware that spreadsheet programs traditionally offer calculations, but what "calculations" did the Appleworks database offer?

Here is another thread where we successfully advised a prior Appleworks database user, who now has an OS X Lion Mac, on how to use LibreOffice to transition his Appleworks database data to FileMaker Pro. After opening the Appleworks database file as a spreadsheet, I used the TEXT:CSV Save As function in LibreOffice to create the text file to be opened in FileMaker Pro:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7452959?answerId=29775034022#29775034022

The statement isn't superfluous for people for people who are completely unfamiliar with the situation.

The AW database module included the ability to make calculations.

Roger:

Thank you, as always, for up to date, accurate information.

Does FileMaker Pro contain a similar ability to enter formulas in a database field?