identifying appleworks files

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Level 1

16 points

identifying appleworks files

I have on my hard drive a number of AppleWorks files. I still have an old PowerBook with AppleWorks installed so I could - and would like to - use this to open all my AppleWorks files and save them is a different format (they are mostly spreadsheets). However, I don't know how to find them - they are scattered all over the place. I could search by extension - except they don't seem to have an extension. When I get Info, there is no extension (and "hide extension" is greyed out) and they are described as "Unix Executable File".

Is there any way I can identify them, other than going through all my folders (all 15 million of them...) one by one and guessing...? It would be better than nothing if I could search for all Unix Executable Files, but I don't know how to do that either...

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jun 1, 2016 4:45 AM

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Answer 1

Leo Bloom Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 1, 2016 6:15 AM in response to Leo Bloom

Except I now find that my version of AppleWorks cannot save as anything other than AppleWorks or ClarisWorks - there appears to be no "export" facility. So it seems that copy-paste is the only way to get the contents of an AppleWorks spreadsheet into a NeoOffice one (which I suppose is no more laborious than opening and saving in a different format). Unless anyone has any other ideas?

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Answer 2

Peggy

Level 8

41,913 points

Jun 1, 2016 9:21 AM in response to Leo Bloom

Have you tried using ⌘ F on your documents folder & searching for executable as kind?

But the lack of export options in AppleWorks is usually due to the app not being able to find the translators. This happens if the application has been moved from the folder containing the translators. See the second part of my user tip, AppleWorks has stopped working correctly.

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Answer 3

Leo Bloom Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 1, 2016 9:38 AM in response to Peggy

I have to confess, I have no idea how to search for executable files without actually typing something into the search box... So I typed "a" and selected filename and nothing came up. When I extended the search to the whole computer, only applications appear.

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Answer 4

Peggy

Level 8

41,913 points

Jun 1, 2016 7:24 PM in response to Leo Bloom

I copied a folder of known AppleWorks files without the .cwk extension from an old iMac running Tiger to my Mac Pro running El Capitan &, unfortunately, the above technique did not work. There used to be a way to search for files by creator. I do know the creator for AppleWorks & ClarisWorks files is BOBO. I don't see that as an option in Tiger, OS X 10.4.11. It may be a Classic OS thing.

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Answer 5

fosnola

Level 1

126 points

Jun 1, 2016 11:53 PM in response to Peggy

Hello,

maybe you can try the method given in http://www.macworld.com/article/2848770/how-to-open-your-clarisworks-documents-f or-a-stroll-down-memory-lane.html; i.e. at least on my computer, it is able to find many AppleWorks and ClarisWorks files...

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Answer 6

Leo Bloom Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 2, 2016 1:36 AM in response to fosnola

Perfect, it works, thank you!

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Answer 7

Leo Bloom Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 2, 2016 1:40 AM in response to Leo Bloom

Although to go back to my original question, the answer seems to be "I can't" - the files are, for some reason, Unix Executable Files - any Apple (or Claris) Works identifier seems to have been lost along the way.

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Answer 8

fosnola

Level 1

126 points

Jun 2, 2016 4:26 AM in response to Leo Bloom

Leo Bloom wrote:

Although to go back to my original question, the answer seems to be "I can't" - the files are, for some reason, Unix Executable Files - any Apple (or Claris) Works identifier seems to have been lost along the way.

If the finder does not find them, this probably means that the files have lost their metadata information, you can check that by using mdld on a file https://www.macissues.com/2014/05/12/how-to-look-up-file-metadata-in-os-x/

If this is the case, it is still possible to create some AppleScript which try to detect AppleWorks files by reading the data fork ; old appleworks files contain some such scripts ( but they must probably be modified ).

Note:

- I also try to maintain an AppleScript application which try to do something similar, try to find the creator of a file or a list of file in a directory, mwawFile accessible in https://sourceforge.net/projects/libmwaw/files/?source=navbar , so it may help to create your list (at least if Gatekeeper OS X: About Gatekeeper - Apple Support accepts to launch it, ...)

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Answer 9

Barry

Level 9

60,047 points

Jun 3, 2016 8:53 PM in response to Leo Bloom

Hi Leo,

"the files are, for some reason, Unix Executable Files"

That just means they do not have an externally visible extension. OS X sees a file name with no extension and interprets that as meaning a .exe file.

Yvan Koenig wrote a script a few years ago that identifies the type of AppleWorks document saved in a file. You can find it in his box account

Open the July, 2013 Scripts for appleWorks folder. "What kind of AppleWorks file" is the third or fourth one in the list.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 10

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,736 points

Jun 4, 2016 6:12 AM in response to Leo Bloom

You can find all AppleWorks *.cwk files using the following Finder search construct. It says find all Office type files but only display those with the cwk extension. It works for my AppleWorks file collection.

kind:Office +cwk

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