Converting CW 4.x to AW 6.x

[MouseCalls]

I have some 'classic' (in more ways than one) ClarisWorks 4 documents (DR, SS & WP) from the last millennium that I now want to update and reuse/repurpose for current needs. They were created on my PowerPC 604e 8600, and transferred to my G3 iBook some years ago.

If I use AW 6 to open these, I get a message window that says I/O Error.

If I use CTRL (contextual menu) to see what my options are, I see something like ClarisWorks File Converter, which launches Classic (OS 9). Need I stoop so low?

To make it worse, said Converter (which seems to date from CW 4) crashes. I get a blank-window on window that purportedly contains an error message, but none appears. The 2 options in Menu bar are FILE and HELP, and no menu drops down from either of them. I can't even do a normal QUIT. CMD-Q directly didn't work, but OS X's Force Quit of the OS 9 application did.

There's gotta be a way.

Running OS X.3.9 (Panther) in 600MHz G3 dual USB 14" iBook, maxed out at 640 MG RAM.

Thank you for your time

[jakeb]

I have some 'classic' (in more ways than one) ClarisWorks 4 documents (DR, SS & WP) from the last millennium that I now want to update and reuse/repurpose for current needs. They were created on my PowerPC 604e 8600, and transferred to my G3 iBook some years ago.

If I use AW 6 to open these, I get a message window that says I/O Error.

If I use CTRL (contextual menu) to see what my options are, I see something like ClarisWorks File Converter, which launches Classic (OS 9). Need I stoop so low?

To make it worse, said Converter (which seems to date from CW 4) crashes. I get a blank-window on window that purportedly contains an error message, but none appears. The 2 options in Menu bar are FILE and HELP, and no menu drops down from either of them. I can't even do a normal QUIT. CMD-Q directly didn't work, but OS X's Force Quit of the OS 9 application did.

There's gotta be a way.

Running OS X.3.9 (Panther) in 600MHz G3 dual USB 14" iBook, maxed out at 640 MG RAM.

Thank you for your time

I too have a similar issue. I have some old documents created on clarisWorks using an old StarMax power PC (motorola Mac clone running 8.5.1). I would like to be able to view and even copy these into a working application in 10.4.3 on a G4 - is there any hope?

[Barry]

I have some 'classic' (in more ways than one) ClarisWorks 4 documents (DR, SS & WP) from the last millennium that I now want to update and reuse/repurpose for current needs. They were created on my PowerPC 604e 8600, and transferred to my G3 iBook some years ago.

If I use AW 6 to open these, I get a message window that says I/O Error.

If I use CTRL (contextual menu) to see what my options are, I see something like ClarisWorks File Converter, which launches Classic (OS 9). Need I stoop so low?

To make it worse, said Converter (which seems to date from CW 4) crashes. I get a blank-window on window that purportedly contains an error message, but none appears. The 2 options in Menu bar are FILE and HELP, and no menu drops down from either of them. I can't even do a normal QUIT. CMD-Q directly didn't work, but OS X's Force Quit of the OS 9 application did.

There's gotta be a way.

Running OS X.3.9 (Panther) in 600MHz G3 dual USB 14" iBook, maxed out at 640 MG RAM.

Thank you for your time

While AppleWorks 6.2.9 will not open ClarisWorks 4 docs, earlier versions of AW 6 will, and AW 6.2.8, the Classic version included in the same package as 6.2.9 will as well.

To force your Mac to launch AW 6.2.8 (in Classic), you'll need to do a little digging.

Find the AppleWorks 6.app icon by following this path:

Macintosh HD > Applcations > AppleWorks 6 > AppleWorks.app

Control-click on the AppleWorks.app icon, then choose Show package contents from the popup menu.

The package folder will open. Open the Contents folder, then the Classic Mac OS folder, then double click the AppleWorks 6 icon.

This will launch Classic, and AppleWorks 6.2.8, which will be able to open your ClarisWorks 4 documents.

When finished, go back to the AppleWorks.app icon (which will now look like a folder with a brown paper package icon added), control click, and choose Hide pacakge contents.

=====

ClarisWorks File Converter probably did come with ClarisWorks 4, or you got it around the same time. It's a free one-trick-pony whose only purpose was to convert CW 2/3 format files to CW 4 files (and vice versa). The Mac OS was on version 7 at the time, and CW File converter was not updated, so it's not surprising that it breaks under Mac OS 9.

Regards,
Barry

[Dale]

To force your Mac to launch AW 6.2.8 (in Classic), you'll need to do a little digging.

Find the AppleWorks 6.app icon by following this path:

Macintosh HD > Applcations > AppleWorks 6 > AppleWorks.app

Control-click on the AppleWorks.app icon, then choose Show package contents from the popup menu.

The package folder will open. Open the Contents folder, then the Classic Mac OS folder, then double click the AppleWorks 6 icon.

This will launch Classic, and AppleWorks 6.2.8, which will be able to open your ClarisWorks 4 documents.

When finished, go back to the AppleWorks.app icon (which will now look like a folder with a brown paper package icon added), control click, and choose Hide pacakge contents.

A free feature of my shareware program, Sidekick, is that it will open AppleWorks 6 in Classic simply from your menu bar. You're welcome to download it and use it for this purpose.

<http://www.geocities.com/dmgsoftware/>

Cheers

Dale Gillard