Q: old appleworks files

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the quick reply.  First, I am not a professional programmer.  I am generally referred to as a self-taught hobbyist.  I have a lot of exerience with VBA for Office.  Mostly Excel but some with Word, Access and Outlook.  I am learning the Mac.

The Mac I will be running AW 5 & 6 on is running OS X 10.6.8.  AW 6 is version 6.2.7.  I am awaiting AW 5 so I have no information on it at the moment. 

What i will start with is a list of file names complete with path to the flash drive containing the cwk files.  The list is in a AW 5 spreadsheet.  I know all the cwk files are spreadsheet types.  I want to go down the list opening each cwk file and then saving it in a new format.  As I said, I have done this with a couple of the files manually.

There are 84 of them. 

I am debating doing the whole thing manually as opposed to my initial idea of writing (or recording) a macro to do the job.  It took me a week to write a simple LO Basic macro to list in a spreadsheet (ods) all files in a starting folder including all subfolders recursively and then separating the text files from the spreadsheet ones.  The recorder was no help in LO Basic.  It was a real chore.

If the AW 5 recorder could get me the basic code to do the open and save around which i put the looping i thought it might be doable.  As someone who is familiar with all this I would value your opinion.  I am retired and have lots of time but.

Best regards,

Russ

Hi Russ,

"As someone who is familiar with all this..."

Would that I were! As mentioned, I've recorded, but not written, macros in AW5. To the best of my recollection, though, all of these were linear, and just replaced a series of mouseclicks and/or keystrokes.

My first thought on seeing your plan, though, is to wonder whether AW5 will run on a machine with Snow Leopard (OS X v10.6) as the OS. AW5 is a 'Classic' application (ie. Mac OS 9 or earlier). I will run in Tiger (v10.4), using OS 9.2  in the Classic environment, which was installed by default with that OS. Leopard (v10.5) either removed Classic, or made it an optional install.

Rgards,

Barry

AW 5 requires 'Classic' and will not run in Snow Leopard, and AW 6 has no macros. Also AppleWorks macros are purely a way of recording a sequence of actions: you can't subsequently edit them - if you want to make a change you have to record the entire process again. 

QuicKeys will enable you to create complex macros which you can do fine editing on and is very much more powerful than the AW macros. As you mention, the problem can be that it takes longer to construct and debug a complex macro than to carry out the necessary process manually - it just depends on how many iterations the macro is going to be used for.

Hi Barry & Roger,

Both responses are extremely helpful.  I am dropping the idea of using AW 5 and will look at QuickKeys. 

The ultimate goal is to get the old cwk spreadsheets into Numbers running on a Mac running Mountain Lion.  I have a Mac running Snow Lepoard to help me along by being able to open the cwk files and save them in something readable by a higher level Mac. My brother (the user) is comfortable with Numbers.  Excel overwhelms him which i can understand. 

My final question is this.  Do you have any suggestions of where I might start with QuickKeys?  I have written (not recorded) lots of VBA for Excel and consider myself to be very proficient in it.  QuickKeys will be brand new to me.

Thanks again for your help on this.

Russ

Unless there are hundreds of these spreadsheets I don't see why you need a macro - the process couldn't be simpler. Run Numbers. Locate your spreadsheet file(s). Drag them onto the Numbers icon in the Dock. Save each one. You could do at least fifty of these in the time it would take you to create and test a macro in QuickKeys (even not allowing for the time to install it and get used to it).

The spreadsheet files are cwk (Claris Works) files that cannot be opened on Mountain Lion running numbers.  They can be openeded on a Mac running Snow Lepoard running AW 6.  Are you saying that i can install Numbers on a Mac running Snow Lepoard and then simply drag the cwk files on Numbers and then save them?  If so I agree with you.

Exactly: of course it has to be the previous version of Numbers (the current one won't run on SL anyway, but it doesn't open AW files).

So you are saying I just go to the Apple App Store and buy the previous version of Numbers.  Once installed on SL i can  just drag and drop cwk files on it and then save them in Numbers.  That sounds like an easy solution.  Thanks very much for your help.

from my search I think i need iWorks 09 which includes Pages 4.0.2 and Numbers 2.0.2.  Is Numbers 2.0.2 integral to iWorks 09?  In other words it cannot be purchases separatly from Amazon.  The Apple App Store does not carry it anymore.

Yes Numbers 2 is in iWork '09 - Apple don't sell it any more, but you can probably get it from Amazon or independent retailers. Then you can just drag and drop as I described.

Perfect!!  Thanks again for your help. 

Best wishes for the Holidays and the New Year,

Russ

Hi Russ,

I concur with the assessment that for this number of files it's just as efficient to use drag and drop then save manually as it would be to go through the learnig curve, development and debugging of a Quickkeys macro.

One further consideration, though:

Numbers '09 can open AppleWorks files only if the files are AW6 files. AppleWorks 5 files, and files created with any version of ClarisWorks can't be opend with Numbers.

If some of your brother's files were created with AppleWorks 5, you will need a two-step process: Open the file in AW6 (which will tel you the file was created with an earlier versionof AppleWorks and add a "v6" to the filename), then Save the file (as an AW6 file). Step 2 is to open the new file with Numbers, and again Save.

ClarisWorks 5 files are in the same format as AW5. Files created with earlier versions of ClarisWorks will likely be inaccessible without going to an OS prior to OS X.

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year's!

Regards,

Barry

Hi Barry,

First I feel bad that you and Roger are responding on Christmas Day.  I should have let this lie until after Christmas.  But it is too late now.

I had a feeling that dragging old cwk files on Numbers 09 might not work as Roger described. Dragging AW 6 yes, cwk or AW 5 probably not.  So, as you say, its going to be a two step process.  First cwk files converted to AW 6 using AW 6 running on Snow Lepoard.  Then dragging AW 6 files on Numbers 09 running on Snow Lepoard and saving as Numbers. 

I am going to do all of this manually.  I doubt i could use QuickKeys for the first step even if I wanted to.

I just ordered iWorks 09 from Amazon.  I now know the path and i thank you both for your help.

Enjoy the rest of your Christmas,

Russ

ClarisWorks 4 or earlier files can be opened by AppleWorks 6 in OS X (Snow Leopard or earlier). The only caveat is that AppleWorks 6.2.9 may return a error with some, but not all. Any other version of AppleWorks 6 will open them. I keep a copy of AppleWorks 6.2.4 just in case I run across any of these files.

Peggy,

Thanks for your response.  I will be running AW 6.2.7 on Snow Lepoard which should produce the same results on my brother's cwk files as your AW 6.2.4.  I can't tell which version of Claris Works they are other than LibreOffice 4.1 was able to open all of them.  Those that were writer it was able to convert.  Those that were spreadsheets were opened but not converted.  It is this set that i am now going to convert using AW 6.2.7.  I know they are all spreadsheets.  I was able to confirm this from the first 8 characters of each file that was not converted by LO 4.1

From what you say it should not matter which version of Claris Works they are.  They all should open in AW 6.2.7 running on Snow Lepoard.

Russ