Converting from WordPerfect for Mac

[wjdoyle]

I have been a long-time user of WordPerfect for Mac and can't bring myself to go to Word. I am using everything from OS 8.6 to 10.3, but only 8.6 for WordPerfect.

I need to convert my WordPerfect files- can Nisus do this? More importantly, I use the merge feature of WP all the time (F12 jumps to spots I have set up on a form to fill them in from the keyboard). Given I have over 3000 of these forms, I cannot convert them one at a time and need a word prcocessor that can handle this.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Bill

[bbrowncashdollar]

I was a long time user of WP 3.5.x for the mac too. In a lot of my complex docs with multiple tables, conversion was spotty at best. Simple docs it seems to open more or less fine. This is the problem you'll run into translating anything either into word nisus or whatever else. If you're running a G5 with vpc 7 you might be able to get a newer version of WP to run at an acceptable level. But whatever you chose other then sticking with wp in classic (just got to buggy for me) or in vpc you've got some work ahead of you to reconstruct your documents. Even as abiword improves its wp translation (which is where NWX gets its ability to translate wp files) I don't think you'll ever see it come far enough. Just my 2 cents

[charles]

Hi:

bbrowncashdollar gave a great answer to this question. I just wanted to add that most of the work going into WP support in AbiWord and Nisus is for the later versions of WordPerfect still in use (i.e. those on Windows). We are looking at some ways long term to help people transition from WordPerfect for the Mac though.

Since WordPerfect for the Mac is essentially dead, I recommend finding a way to translate those files into a newer, more open format. Some options include using MacLinkPlus or opening the files on a PC running a later version of WordPerfect and then resaving them as RTF.

As bbrown said, though, you will probably still have to do some reconstruction no matter what. When you do translate these files, I recommend you put them into RTF format. Every word processor supports this format reasonably well so you will minimize the work you have to do in the future to move between word processors (and to send your files to other people using other word processors). This is why RTF is Nisus Writer Express' native format.

-Charles