what is the real extension of old Nisus Writer 6.5 ?

[jdevriendt]

From backup to update, some Nisus Writer 6 files remained in their folders instead, but they lost their suffix or extension.
I see: “etude 3.doc,” “etude 2.pdf” but etude 1, under NW 6;5 is simply called “etude”. For no software is able to read a file without an extension, i’ve lose this precious even old work of classification.
What was the old extension:“ etude.N????”
It would help me a lot! Thanks.

JD

[adryan]

G'day, JD et al

The file extension is probably just hidden. Click on the file to select it in the Finder, then File > Get Info. About halfway down the columnar window that opens, you should see a section titled "Name & Extension". That should provide the information you want, as well as a checkbox for hiding or unhiding the file extension.

You have to remember, too, that there is no single file extension for Nisus Writer, as can be seen from the fact that the Save dialog box contains a drop-down menu offering a choice of file formats.

Cheers,
Adrian

[jdevriendt]

There was something to have done (comm I) at least ten years ago.
No, it's "study", and that's it!
Sorry...

[Tacitus]

From memory the old Nisus Classic files were simply text files. Classic files had two aspects: the data fork and the resource fork. Data was the information held as plain text and the resource fork contained any formatting or other information.

Have you tried opening them in either TextEdit or BBEdit? You could also try appending .txt to the file name. EG: etude.txt

Worth a try although you will lose all the formatting.

[jdevriendt]

thank you.
Sure, i did it.
wht’s about notes ?

[Hamid]

If you have Nisus Writer Pro or Nisus Writer Express you can open NW 6.5 files with all data, formatting and notes intact.
If you open the same files in TextEdit or another app, formatting and notes will be lost because they are stored in the resource fork.

[martin]

Old "classic" Nisus Writer 6.5 files from the days circa Mac OS 9 have no official file extension. There actually was no such concept on the Mac at the time. The Mac used file creator/type codes like NISX that were hidden from the user. The concept of file extensions (which intertwine the file name with the file type) began on other operating systems like Windows/Unix. The Mac only begrudgingly adopted this concept when Mac OS X debuted.

So, your old classic files can have any "extension" that was typed at the time like .doc, .notes, .random, or anything else– the system did not care or notice. It wasn't a proper extension, just a period and some text, like any other text in the file name.

As for how to handle such files, please see our FAQ on how to open old classic files.

[jdevriendt]

Alright… So I'm going to keep these files with text elements, no layout.

See (read) you again