MS Works to Open Office

Rhys Cordelle · Nov 13, 2009

I didn't have Office on my old computer so I was using MS Works spreadsheets and documents for my writing and outlining. Now I've got a new computer and have downloaded Open Office on it but I can't open the Works documents in Open Office. I've tried going in roundabout ways like transferring it to Wordpad first but it comes out in gobbledeegook.

Is there a simple solution to this? I don't have Works on this new computer so I can't even open the documents to copy/paste

backslashbaby · Nov 13, 2009

I've heard this works very well for that problem, but I haven't tried it myself:

http://zamzar.com/

The free version lets you do 100mb or something.

I think OxygenOffice does Works files, but most don't.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 13, 2009

MS Works should be able to save documents to several formats, so reopening everyting in Works, and then saving to a format compatible with OpenOffice is usually the easiest way to go about it. This is an easy conversion with my version of Works.

Deleted member 42 · Nov 13, 2009

Rhys Cordelle said:
Is there a simple solution to this? I don't have Works on this new computer so I can't even open the documents to copy/paste

Save the documents that are word processor files as .rtf. Be prepared for some reformatting, but it should be minor.

Save the spreadsheets as tab delimited text files or as .csv files. You might try one of the spreadsheets in both formats first; one might work better than the other.

Open the converted files in OpenOffice via the File menu, rather than just clicking the file.

rmgil04 · Nov 18, 2009

I'm having a similar problem. A friend critiqued my entire draft novel in OpenOffice, but when he converted it to a Word document, all of his comments (120+) were scrambled and unreadable. The text of the story converted, but the inserted comments were trashed.

Any advice?

Matera the Mad · Nov 18, 2009

Meh. Tell him to use between the lines comments or a separate file.

(I have an MS with Word's wonderful comments -- I never want to deal with that again! They think everyone has Super-eyesight.)

MS Works to Open Office

Rhys Cordelle

backslashbaby

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Jamesaritchie

Deleted member 42

rmgil04

In re-write limbo!

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

MS Works to Open Office

Rhys Cordelle

backslashbaby

~~~~*~~~~

Jamesaritchie

Deleted member 42

rmgil04

In re-write limbo!

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

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