MS Word with comments > Mac Pages?

Torgo

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Hello, does anyone know of a way to open an MS Word file (with comments/annotations) in Pages for Mac? (Or some other WP program for Mac?)
 

kuwisdelu

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Hello, does anyone know of a way to open an MS Word file (with comments/annotations) in Pages for Mac? (Or some other WP program for Mac?)

Just open it. Last time I tried, I just opened it in Pages and they showed up fine. Also worked in OpenOffice/LibreOffice. I think I've only tried it with .doc rather than .docx but I don't remember.
 
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kuwisdelu, you are so amazing, always here to help us with our biggest problems!
By the way, speaking of .doc documents, I read in another post here on AW that they were bad because they were flooded with viruses (I'm paraphrasing) and if that's true then I am going to have to convert all my manuscripts because they're all .doc. I think the only bad thing about .doc documents, as I found yesterday, the hard way, is the inability of Wordpad to open those files. The computer from which I tried to open a .doc in Wordpad wasn't mine, someone loaned it to me while they borrowed mine, but knowing that word-processors like OO and LO could open those files just fine, since that computer's hard drive is a lot smaller than mine (70 GB total space and only 28 GB free) and since the computer wasn't mine, I didn't dare to install any other word processor on it. But what do you think? Is it true that .doc documents are bad?
 

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If I may, it's not the .doc format that's bad, per se, the problem lies in the macros (small user-generated programs) that certain word-processors allow people to create and embed within the document file.

Like Windows itself, because Word and its .doc macros are so incredibly widespread, it makes them an attractive attack vector for miscreants. I may be wrong, but I think the later versions of Word actually have their macro-processing abilities disabled by default; either way, if you don't use macros, you should probably scour the Word options to ensure that macro support is turned off.

Also, Wordpad is, and has always been, capable of loading and saving .doc files. It's true however that Wordpad does not support every feature of Word, which is perhaps what you meant?
 
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If I may, it's not the .doc format that's bad, per se, the problem lies in the macros (small user-generated programs) that certain word-processors allow people to create and embed within the document file.

Like Windows itself, because Word and its .doc macros are so incredibly widespread, it makes them an attractive attack vector for miscreants. I may be wrong, but I think the later versions of Word actually have their macro-processing abilities disabled by default; either way, if you don't use macros, you should probably scour the Word options to ensure that macro support is turned off.

Also, Wordpad is, and has always been, capable of loading and saving .doc files. It's true however that Wordpad does not support every feature of Word, which is perhaps what you meant?


I tried opening the .doc file from that other Windows Vista computer and all I got was a whole bunch of strange characters mushed together, like I had typed my manuscript in Wingdings or something, and having just read your post, I also tried opening the .doc file on Wordpad on this computer, Windows 7 computer. I got the same thing, but then the manuscript started after a whole bunch of strange characters. Oh, and it seemed like it was typed in Courier size 10 instead of Times New Roman size 12 that I typed it in.
 

Bigglesworth

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Hmm, on further investigation I think may have oversold the .doc-handling capabilities of Wordpad.

According to Wikipedia, prior to Windows XP, Wordpad didn't support full Unicode, which might well lead to you seeing mangled content. In addition, it seems it only supports Word 6.0 - 2003 .doc files; new .doc versions may also display incorrectly. Finally, from Windows XP onwards, Wordpad will only load .doc's, and not save them!

Sorry for confusing things with my earlier post!
 
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Oh, well that explains so much!! You don't have to apologize for anything. Shite happens. :)


But in that case I better stick to computers that have Microsoft Word on them, any version, or convert those manuscripts to RTF format and remove any extra headings they might have, although all they have is page numbers. :) It's going to be pesky having to copy and paste all the time to keep both versions of the same document updated, but oh well, I'll figure it out eventually, when it comes to that. :) Thanks for everything, Bigglesworth. I learned a lot, especially in your last post. Off to do some writing!
 

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No problem =)

But one last thing: if you are indeed comfortable with OpenOffice, its installation size is insignificant compared to the 28GB free on your loaned computer, so I wouldn't worry about installing it.
 
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No problem =)

But one last thing: if you are indeed comfortable with OpenOffice, its installation size is insignificant compared to the 28GB free on your loaned computer, so I wouldn't worry about installing it.


You're absolutely right about me not having to worry about the free space that computer has, but I would have to ask the owner of the computer if it would be OK to install OO on it. In reality, that's the only problem. :) I will worry about that when I have to borrow the computer again, though. Thanks for everything, Bigglesworth. You've been of great help. :Thumbs:
 

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Hello, does anyone know of a way to open an MS Word file (with comments/annotations) in Pages for Mac? (Or some other WP program for Mac?)

I can open Microsoft Word for Mac 2004 .doc files with comments just fine in the current Pages. Comments appear as yellow "stickies" in the left margin.

I have no clue about Microsoft Word 2011 or .docx; I can try opening a sample if you send me one in email.
 

Torgo

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Sorry for not checking back in, folks. The author in question couldn't make it work in Pages. In the end we saved it as a .pdf in Word, which preserved the comments (but made it impossible to edit, so it's not a perfect solution.) I'm actually now suspecting it was a docx file and not a doc...
 

kuwisdelu

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Sorry for not checking back in, folks. The author in question couldn't make it work in Pages. In the end we saved it as a .pdf in Word, which preserved the comments (but made it impossible to edit, so it's not a perfect solution.) I'm actually now suspecting it was a docx file and not a doc...

Well, what was the extension? Do you know what version of Pages he or she was using?

If there is bandwidth available, downloading LibreOffice would probably have worked.
 

Torgo

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Well, what was the extension? Do you know what version of Pages he or she was using?

If there is bandwidth available, downloading LibreOffice would probably have worked.

I was out of the office (moving house) and working as second-hand tech support, so I'm not entirely sure how it played out.
 

kuwisdelu

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I was out of the office (moving house) and working as second-hand tech support, so I'm not entirely sure how it played out.

Ah. Well, that's a shame. I know the most recent versions, at least, of both Pages and LibreOffice can see comments from .doc files, but I've yet to get any .docx with comments. I may soon, so maybe we'll find out then...
 

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I was out of the office (moving house) and working as second-hand tech support, so I'm not entirely sure how it played out.

You were Having A Life?

I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you!
 

amergina

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I know comments and track changes work just fine with .doc >> Pages and Page >> .doc -- um, with the exception of images in comments in Word. (My writing mentor liked to put in images into the comments to make his point. Like the Leaning tower of Pisa when a character leaned too much.)

But I've not tried it with docx. I do know that it works fine if you use the latest and greatest Word and save it as .doc, though.