Appleworks documents

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Level 1

4 points

Appleworks documents

I have a new Mac book Pro using OS Lion (10.7.5 I think).

My old Mac book was pretty outdated, and I was still using Appleworks 6 as a word processor.

I transferred all of my documents to the new laptop using Time Machine, but Appleworks won't run on the Lion OS.

I did some web research, and everyone says that Pages will open old Appleworks 6 docs. (Appleworks 6 not 5. I know it won't open 5.)

SO I got Pages today. When I try to open a document from the document folder -- I select "Open with" and select Pages. A little text line says Pages will open the document. But then, after I click on Pages, I get an error message saying the document can't be opened.

I also tried opening documents from within Pages, by using "Open" and then selecting a document. I get the same error message.

I've tried this with multiple documents with the same result. I also uninstalled and reinstalled Pages, thinking there was a problem with the program.

I know the documents themselves aren't the problem. I can actually open them in Text Edit -- but there are thousands of weird characters before and after the text that are very annoying. And everyone on the web says Pages will work ... so I don't understand why it won't.

Can anyone help?

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MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 8, 2013 3:46 PM

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Answer 1

VGrove Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 8, 2013 4:04 PM in response to VGrove

Just a clarification, because I just read a few similar questions. These are definitely word processing documents -- not spreadsheet or presentation documents. And they are also definitely Appleworks 6 documents (cwk) not older ones. But Pages will not open them.

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Answer 2

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jan 8, 2013 7:47 PM in response to VGrove

I know that I am unable to open AW6 documents with Pages on my Lion or Mountain Lion partitions; however, I am able to open them with Pages in Snow leopard (10.6) and then copy them to my Lion partition. So, do you still have your older machine? If so, you can try different methods to copy/paste as a Text Edit document, open them in Pages there and then copy over, etc.

Out of curiosity:

Why are you posting your entire keyboard underneath your post? Is that part of your question?

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Answer 3

VGrove Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 9, 2013 5:05 AM in response to babowa

Thanks for answering. Unfortunately, I don't have snow leopard on my old laptop, and its backlight is going out, so there's not much point in upgrading it. As I said, I can open the old A6 documents in text edit, but it's a pain to have to go through all of the weird characters, especially when I'm trying to adjust to the new trackpad which is a lot different than the old one.

I wonder why everyone says that Pages will open A6 documents when it won't. I wouldn't have gotten it if I had known it wouldn't. I don't like it much so far.

On the keyboard question: That's confusing. I don't see a keyboard under my post -- and I certainly didn't add it intentionally. Does everyone but me see it? How do I get rid of it if I can't see it and I don't know how it got there? Is it on this post too?

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Answer 4

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jan 9, 2013 8:39 AM in response to VGrove

To conserve space here, I've taken a partial screenshot of what's underneath your post:

It is much longer and yes, it is showing in your latest post as well.

I wonder, check your preferences and your "stuff" for any entries you might have made that will automatically show up at tne end of your posts? Each one of your posts is probably at least one entire page long with that endless lettering at the end.

Well, as for the AW - there may be some confusion there: technically, Pages will open AW word and Numbers will open spreadsheets; however, I have found recently that it will not do so in Lion or Mountain Lion. As I said, fortunately I have Snow Leopard and it works fine there so it may have to do with the fact that Lion or ML do not support PPC apps or their documents, so Pages working within that parameter also cannot - my assumption.

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Answer 5

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jan 9, 2013 9:02 AM in response to babowa

Edit to last post:

I actually just now tried to open an old AW word document from 2006 in my Mountain Lion Pages and it opened just fine (albeit with a warning popup of some fonts not being available), so you must be having a different issue.

Sorry, I should have tried that yesterday already. I don't have an answer why it did not work previously, but it is working for me now.

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Answer 6

VGrove Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 9, 2013 3:11 PM in response to babowa

My Appleworks problem is solved! Even though I just installed Pages (and Numbers, etc) yesterday, last night Software Updates already had an update for it. The update said it was to fix "compatiblity issues." After I did the update this morning, Pages will now open all of my Appleworks 6 documents. So apparently the software comes with a compatibility problem that needs to be fixed to open Appleworks documents. What a relief!!!

On the keyboard issue: I haven't changed anything (from the default settings) in Safari's preferences. However, with this Mac, for the first time ever, I decided to get a virus protection program -- and as I was looking through the documentation, it said the virus protection includes a "virtual keyboard." I turned that off. If anyone sees this post, maybe you could let me know whether that got rid ot the long line of characters at the end of my posts. I still can't see them myself, although I can see the one that babowa was kind enough to copy.

Thanks again.

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Answer 7

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jan 9, 2013 3:19 PM in response to VGrove

First of all, very glad to hear your AW>Pages problem is solved!

Second:

However, with this Mac, for the first time ever, I decided to get a virus protection program -- and as I was looking through the documentation, it said the virus protection includes a "virtual keyboard."

Yes, now the long line of characters is gone from your last post. Thank goodness; it required a lot of unnecessary scrolling (it was more than twice the length of what I showed in the screenshot).

So, which AV stuff did you install? How is a "virtual keyboard" going to protect you? You might want to read this:

http://www.reedcorner.net/mmg/

If, by chance it's MacKeeper, I strongly recommend doing a search for that in the forums here - there are dozens of threads asking how to uninstall it.

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Answer 8

VGrove Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 9, 2013 4:22 PM in response to babowa

The virus protection I bought is Kaspersky. I've never used virus protecion on a mac previously, but I use Kaspersky on my kids' Windows computer, because it's highly rated and has good parental controls. (The kids have to use WIndows to be compatible with their school computers. Ugh. I hate WIndows.) So I just bought from the same company for my Mac, even though the "package" is a little different.

The virtual keyboard thing must be new, because it isn't on the 2012 Windows virus protection. According to the (very brief) documentation, the virtual keyboard kind of "floats" onto your screen when you are on the web and are going to enter a user id and a password. You enter the user id and password on the virtual keyboard, and it's supposed to add an extra layer of protection for your account/password/etc.. However, I've had so many new things to get used to with the new Mac (like the new trackpad movements) that I ignored the little floating keyboard and entered my apple id and password the normal way. So that may have caused the problem ...or at least turning the virtual keyboard off solved the problem.

Other than the virtual keyboard thing, I've never had any problems with Kaspersky. But then again, I've never used the Mac version until two days ago.

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Answer 9

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jan 9, 2013 5:01 PM in response to VGrove

Thanks for the info - I'd still recommend reading the info in the link I posted.

My humble opinion: the best protection for my Mac is located slightly above and between my ears.

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