I based my comments about converting old word .doc files on my experience in a couple of rounds of file conversion in the past, the most recent about 10 year ago. I just did a round of testing with my current edition of Word (2019 license, version 16.74, recently updated) to see how it behaves with different versions. I have never used Windows, so all these results are from Mac files.
When I go into that version of Word and use the Open command to find an individual file, I am able to open files identified as coming from MSWord97-2004 created in 2003 . I am able to open at least some of them directly into my current version of Word (running on Monterey) by clicking them on the files in the finder, and I also can open it using the “Open” command in Word.
I was not able to open files “Kind: MicrosoftWord.app” that were last modified on July 21, 1993 presumably from Word for Mac version 5 (I don’t remember using Word for Mac 6, but could be mistaken) using the “open” Command in Word . When I tried clicking on the finder to open the file, I got an error message “[file name] uses a file type that is blocked from opening in this version.” It also had a link to Error: [Filename] uses a file type that is blocked from opening in this version - Microsoft Support which offered a quite a few options. Among them are opening it using Word 2011 or an earlier version (if you have a Mac that can run it) or using Apple TextEdit to open your document with basic formatting, which I confirmed works in Monterey. They also claim OneDrive may be able to open them, but I have not tried that.
So I can confirm that Word 2019 does open word 97 and later .doc files, but does not open Word 5 .doc files, and presumably does not open earlier Word .doc files.
I will add I have used LibreOffice to to convert earlier Word files, as suggested by jml49.
My apologies for making too broad a statement earlier.
I use that too, usually when I don’t like the way Keynote or Pages renders the mathematics. For math expressions or equations within text, though, I always use the apps’ built-in support so I don’t have to monkey around with getting the placement right.
I suspect that Keynote was developed on the Mac so that Steve Jobs could deliver brilliant, dynamic presentations. In those days it had unique abilities and I quickly started using it in place of Powerpoint.
I was very disappointed when Keynote was “updated” so it could also run in iOS and lost many handy features. However I still prefer it to Powerpoint.
Converting Keynote files to Powerpoint seems to work okay. I have needed to do this because conferences often require presentations to be pre-loaded as Powerpoint files. In these cases I always have to check that video works in the lecture theatre because Powerpoint is woeful getting this to work.
I have attended many presentations where the presenter has spent many, many hours putting together a video (e.g. computer simulation of a car crash) and it refuses to run on the day. Maybe the latest Powerpoint is more reliable?
In my (much) earlier posting regarding the Apple “office” programs, I certainly did not intend for any endorsements for Microsoft products to be implied or assumed. In my humble opinion, only Excel can be assumed to be an appropriate productivity program. YMMV, of course. Nisus Writer Pro is so much better than Word it’s not even close, in MHO. YMMV, again. But I’d be surprised if anyone defended PowerPoint over Keynote which is equivalent to comparing garbage to crap. In my opinion, of course. If you actually like PowerPoint I apologize if I offend you here–that’s not my intent. No real need to post countervailing opinions–unless you want to, of course.
FileMaker Pro, as mentioned by others, should be considered by anyone with serious data processing needs, even if it is far more expensive than software “apps” you’re used to buying for 15 or 20 bucks. Try the free trial.
My criticisms of Apple’s software development was (unclearly) directed at system software “upgrades” that have not gone well. Maybe they should go back to charging for the annual “upgrades.”
I don’t have a link to the Microsoft Web page at my fingertips, but they have a page that explains that all Word files over a certain age can no longer be opened by double-clicking on them in the Finder for security reasons. Such files can still be opened, but they need to be opened from within Word itself. That is what that error message that you got, that says that certain file types are “blocked,” means.
I have no problem opening Word files that are at least 20 years old. Microsoft, in my experience, has gone out of its way to make sure that files remain compatible for as long as possible.
This is very significant for those of us considering dropping our contract for Microsoft’s rentware.
If you get a chance later on (I realize you’re probably very busy), would you please post a link to the page you mentioned? TIA. If you can’t get to it, I’ll just try to find and post it myself.
I’m pretty sure you’re right. I remember at the announcement of Keynote, that Steve said (toward the end of its announcement) that he had been using it for the entire presentation.
Yes, but there are still some files (e.g. my Word-for-DOS documents from the late 80’s that I wrote when in college) that it will flat-out refuse to open via any mechanism.
LibreOffice can usually open them, but I “solved” that problem 10 years ago by powering on an old PowerPC Mac and running my copy of MacLink Plus to convert them to a modern (for that time) version of Word, which my modern installations of Word can open.
“LibreOffice can usually open them, but I “solved” that problem 10 years ago by powering on an old PowerPC Mac and running my copy of MacLink Plus to convert them to a modern (for that time) version of Word, which my modern installations of Word can open.”
For those without easy access to an old mac, Mac OS 9.app includes a pile of useful utilities, including MacLink Plus 11 Deluxe.
Coincidentally, I just had a need to open a Word DOC file of mine created in 2004. I was very surprised to find that the current version of Word (16.74) refuses to open it, even using the “Open” command in the “File” menu, except via the highly unsatisfactory “Recover Text” mode, which loses all formatting. The same file opens fine in LibreOffice.
I think this is the page that Randy is referring to:
I would suggest giving GrowlyWrite a try if you have old Word documents that need to be opened and then saved as something newer.
Years ago I had a friend who had 1300+ old Word doc files from an older computer that he couldn’t figure out how to open on his newer Mac. He had come up with a process of opening them in TextEdit, manually removing some of the format gunk from the start of the file and then checking to see if formatting was ok or if he needed to nuke it all and go totally plain text. That would have taken a very long time, as it was taking him about 3-4 minutes for each file. (Assuming 3 minutes per file he would have been looking at 65 hours of very tedious work).
I assured him we could do better, so experimented and tried opening the files in any program I thought had a chance of working. I found that GrowlyWrite was able to open nearly all of the files in most cases with formatting intact. It’s kind of an odd program, but it’s free and it worked well to convert, just by opening files in batches and then (after adjusting the programs settings to save in .rtf as default file file format) I could just Save As to a subfolder. I probably could have worked out a more automated way of doing it but I wanted to have at least a quick visual review each file just to confirm it seemed correct before saving. I think I averaged 6-8 files per minute; it took about 3 hours to do.
Twenty years! But I was composing lectures in 1986, as well as manuscripts for articles and a book. Only OfficeLibre has saved me when I needed to reopen those artifacts. (And btw, though OfficeLibre is free, if you use it to save your bacon with old MS files, send them a donation!)
For me the iWork suite was brilliant until they ripped out all those features for iOS parity. I had a colleague at Apple who used it for complex UI prototypes…had Numbers spreadsheets populate the data on the “screens” in Keynote. Was really something. They all have gone downhill in additional ways since then, perhaps excepting Numbers, which still manages to surprise me once in a while by doing something smart that I hadn’t expected. To be honest, my favorite feature in Numbers is Option-arrow key to create a new row or column. Something so simple, but few of the web-based tools I’m sometimes forced to use have the ability to have a keyboard shortcut for that, and it’s mind-boggling.