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Converting AppleWorks Paint files before Lion

PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:01 pm
by horansmo
I currently have Snow Lion and have been converting my AppleWorks files to something that will not go away because of lace of support by Apple. I have converted to Pages what can be converted. I have purchased Bento and converted my database. Now I am left with all the things I made over the years in Paint, ClarisPaint, and Paint in AppleWorks. There are new programs available and I find some things will work in Sketchbook Express, and some in PaintBrush. However there appears to be little written documentation for Paintbrush and no Help. They just want you to use Forums which I often find frustrating. I have some things that are bitmapped made long ago but it is not clear if there is any program that handles that. I thought EasyDraw might help but it seems to lack the tools and is mostly vector based. There seems to be nothing that does what AppleWorks Paint does so simply except very expensive programs like Illustrator or Photoshop and I don't need that complexity. Just the ability to copy my file to the clipboard and paste it into a new file and then be able to make editing changes. Has anyone had success doing this type of conversion?

Re: Converting AppleWorks Paint files before Lion

PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:01 pm
by Tim
horansmo wrote:I currently have Snow Lion and have been converting my AppleWorks files to something that will not go away because of lace of support by Apple. I have converted to Pages what can be converted. I have purchased Bento and converted my database. Now I am left with all the things I made over the years in Paint, ClarisPaint, and Paint in AppleWorks. There are new programs available and I find some things will work in Sketchbook Express, and some in PaintBrush. However there appears to be little written documentation for Paintbrush and no Help. They just want you to use Forums which I often find frustrating. I have some things that are bitmapped made long ago but it is not clear if there is any program that handles that. I thought EasyDraw might help but it seems to lack the tools and is mostly vector based. There seems to be nothing that does what AppleWorks Paint does so simply except very expensive programs like Illustrator or Photoshop and I don't need that complexity. Just the ability to copy my file to the clipboard and paste it into a new file and then be able to make editing changes. Has anyone had success doing this type of conversion?


Good question. I did a quick Google search and came up with at least one possible candidate. I have never used this program but it might be worth a look and it is FREE. Check out <http://ipaint.sourceforge.net/>.

Re: Converting AppleWorks Paint files before Lion

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:10 pm
by horansmo
Thanks Tim; I checked that link out but it is not really as good as the Paintbrush program which hopefully may do another update. I find I can do what I need with Paintbrush and I can also do some things with Sketchbook Express which is also a free program. I am not sure that getting Sketchbook Pro is necessary. I may get a trial version and see whether it will allow one to work with bitmaps. It is amazing that nothing really does replace AppleWorks for the ease and simplicity of what it offers without requiring one to learn a lot of technical details. EasyDraw has a lot of potential but really lacks the needed tools to seriously work with bitmaps. It is primarily a vector program and I am not interested in that. However I have yet to try its ability to convert AppleWorks clippings graphics which I have used a lot in the creation of a newsletter and for numerous flyers. Getting these over into Pages has been tricky and it may be that I can get more of them over into EasyDraw which will then allow me to use them and move them around more easily. I will try these various programs out but am also considering just keeping an old computer that allows me to continue to use AppleWorks.