Any Hope for Appleworks on Lion??
Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:20 am
As a teacher, I have some very old files that are Clarisworks, Appleworks, and Office.
When it comes to teacher's planning work - writing & designing worksheets, tests, quizzes, labs - Apple has no idea of how disrespectful towards their users that it is to not support older word processing software files.
I have been an Apple customer for the past 20 years. Here is what I have learned - For Apple, word processing software is only a fad - they are not serious about career oriented word processing. Apple does not care about supporting their word processing users, when I have spoken to Apple representatives on the phone or in their stores, they are very hard headed, clueless, and unwilling to admit any flaw in Apple's word processing "policy" over the years, and thus unwilling to help me try and find a work around.
In twenty years now, I have hundreds of lesson files - HUNDREDS! Every time that there is an update or a change in Apple's word processing, my files (which contain text & graphics , spreadsheet & some data base) are completely messed up- margins unaligned, font sizes slightly different, graphics distorted- what a mess. I have spoken on phone to Apple & even carried my laptop into an Applestore to demonstrate the inconsistency from one Apple word processing software to another.
For a teacher, after planning out a curriculum and tweaking it for a period of, let's say, 5 years, what a blessing it is to come to school & quickly pull up a worksheet file & then immediately print it out for students to use. But once Apple updates their word processing, my files are so distorted that I would need to spend 5 - 10 minutes editing each page before I can print it (it takes longer when graphics are involved) - the word "inconvenient" is a major understatement to describe the problem with Apple's inconsistency in supporting their word processing software.
What experienced teacher wants to sit down for hours and hours and re-type and re-edit all their word processing files to match "iWork" - just another word processing "fad" that Apple has latched on to that will fade away in a few years. I have tried 3rd party word processing translators, etc.. nothing works completely.
Did you know I have many, many old Office files..... every old Office file that I have will open in the latest Office software (on PC at least). After 20 years of teaching, that is phenomenal!
I wish that I knew then what I know now!! I would have never entered
the world of Apple word processing ("Clarisworks" was the Apple word processing fad back then)
I wish that Apple would see the light and adopt new software that can open my old Appleworks files with 100% accurately. If anyone has a suggestion, I will gladly test it out, but I do not want to spend any time editing my hundreds of word processing files.
By the way (this may shed more light on my particular case) , I teach Chemistry - so you can
imagine how I rely on subscripts, superscripts, graphics symbols... etc... These files still open fine in the latest Appleworks.
When it comes to teacher's planning work - writing & designing worksheets, tests, quizzes, labs - Apple has no idea of how disrespectful towards their users that it is to not support older word processing software files.
I have been an Apple customer for the past 20 years. Here is what I have learned - For Apple, word processing software is only a fad - they are not serious about career oriented word processing. Apple does not care about supporting their word processing users, when I have spoken to Apple representatives on the phone or in their stores, they are very hard headed, clueless, and unwilling to admit any flaw in Apple's word processing "policy" over the years, and thus unwilling to help me try and find a work around.
In twenty years now, I have hundreds of lesson files - HUNDREDS! Every time that there is an update or a change in Apple's word processing, my files (which contain text & graphics , spreadsheet & some data base) are completely messed up- margins unaligned, font sizes slightly different, graphics distorted- what a mess. I have spoken on phone to Apple & even carried my laptop into an Applestore to demonstrate the inconsistency from one Apple word processing software to another.
For a teacher, after planning out a curriculum and tweaking it for a period of, let's say, 5 years, what a blessing it is to come to school & quickly pull up a worksheet file & then immediately print it out for students to use. But once Apple updates their word processing, my files are so distorted that I would need to spend 5 - 10 minutes editing each page before I can print it (it takes longer when graphics are involved) - the word "inconvenient" is a major understatement to describe the problem with Apple's inconsistency in supporting their word processing software.
What experienced teacher wants to sit down for hours and hours and re-type and re-edit all their word processing files to match "iWork" - just another word processing "fad" that Apple has latched on to that will fade away in a few years. I have tried 3rd party word processing translators, etc.. nothing works completely.
Did you know I have many, many old Office files..... every old Office file that I have will open in the latest Office software (on PC at least). After 20 years of teaching, that is phenomenal!
I wish that I knew then what I know now!! I would have never entered
the world of Apple word processing ("Clarisworks" was the Apple word processing fad back then)
I wish that Apple would see the light and adopt new software that can open my old Appleworks files with 100% accurately. If anyone has a suggestion, I will gladly test it out, but I do not want to spend any time editing my hundreds of word processing files.
By the way (this may shed more light on my particular case) , I teach Chemistry - so you can
imagine how I rely on subscripts, superscripts, graphics symbols... etc... These files still open fine in the latest Appleworks.