Techsurvivors

Archives => 2003 => Topic started by: danf63 on April 11, 2003, 06:52:00 AM

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: danf63 on April 11, 2003, 06:52:00 AM

Hi, everyone

I've tried to open .wps files (Microsoft Works) in Word in WinXP and in Word 98 (OS 9).  WinXP's Word doesn't open the files at all.  On the Mac, I can open the files, but they come up with a lot of junk.

Does anyone know what the problem might be.  Thanks.

Dan

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: cdub1988 on April 11, 2003, 08:32:00 AM

dan -

Do you get a box asking you to "Convert From"?

I guess the thing I was thinking was all the times I tried to open something that Word didn't like and it bunks out telling me that it wants to convert it from text only or RTF or something else, and then kills the file when it imports with a bunch of extra characters (boxes, spaces, etc).

Only solution I found was to convert the file before opening it with MacLinkPlus.

Hope that helps.

Chris

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: danf63 on April 11, 2003, 08:52:00 AM

Chris, thanks.

I finally managed to do it.  Instead of converting to "text", I converted it to "recover text from any format" and the documents came out perfect!

It's one for our side that this cannot be done in WinXP, going from MS Works to MS Word.

Dan

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: cdub1988 on April 11, 2003, 01:43:00 PM

Dan,

 

The unofficial score is now:

APPLE ---------------> 2,992,297

M$ -------------------> -1,293,398

       

Take care.

Chris

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: Paddy on April 11, 2003, 10:48:00 PM

That little 'recover text from any format' option is pretty cool. I discovered to my great surprise that I can even open Publisher documents in Word with it - minus all the formatting, of course, and if there are jumps (in a newsletter for instance) it can be really interesting putting it all back together. The one caveat - you do get a lot of formatting "junk" at the beginning of the recovered document - one Publisher document that was 10 pages long yielded over 500 pages of gobbledegook before I got to the actual text - I almost gave up.    And for the record - the PC version of Word yielded exactly the same results.

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: MamaMoose on April 12, 2003, 10:50:00 PM

danf63,

I use canOpener 4 to open any file. IT will give you text and icons in the document. You may find it helpful.

MamaMoose

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: jepinto on April 13, 2003, 05:02:00 AM

Dan:

Funny you should bring this up.  I had to do the same thing yesterday for a newbie (why oh why didn't she call first!?  It is a pretty Toshiba though.)

WinXP Word opened the WinXP Works file, but Word didn't "see" them at first.  Had to go "open" then "all files" and then conversion worked.  However! A "Save As" wanted to save as a wps file, and that itsy bitsy scroll box is dang difficult to navigate.  Finally!    found the Word format, strangely enough, at the top of the list    

And didya know that AOL automatically zips files if you attach more than one?

Title: Trying to open .WPS files
Post by: danf63 on April 13, 2003, 09:42:00 AM

Thanks for all the info, everyone.

MamaMoose: I have to try CanOpener 4!

Dan