Working with Microsoft Works WP and Corel WordPerfect files

ychaddad · General User Joined: 30 May 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Geneva

Hi,
I have another problem converting old Word Perfect 5.2 Arabic files into MS Word or OOo. Since MS Word 97, the converter of Arabic Word Perfect files does not work. Only version 6 can convert these WP files with some acceptable success. As all the Arabic documents of the United Nations were in WP 5.2 until 1999 and even beyond, I was wondering whether OOo would have an adequate converter. The converter provided separately by Corel does not work well either. Arabic is not supported anymore in WP since version 6. I would really appreciate any possible solutions.
Regards,
Yasser
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bobharvey · Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 11:45 am Post subject:

Hi.

First, let me say that I have a huge amount of time for the UN, particularly UNESCO and UNICEF.

WP support is a ghetto in modern computing, and arabic script is another. Normally I resist ghettos but in this case you might be better searching http://ar.openoffice.org/ and asking on one of the development mailing lists. YOur question is not quite on-topic for them, but that is where the experts live.

The forums are user-to-user, and it sounds like you know more about all this than most of us already!

ychaddad · General User Joined: 30 May 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Geneva

Thanks a lot, Bobharvey, for your reply. I will seek help from the site you mentioned.
Regards,
Yasser
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Open Source in International organizations

Bishop Damark · Newbie Joined: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 1

There is another way to accomplish the same task and you don't need to buy new software or download anything. This tip works best for MS Works Word Processor files that are simple in structure (such as resumes, cover letters, ...).

For Microsoft Works Word Processor Files (.wps extension), you may follow this procedure:

1) If you know that the file in question ends in .wps, then you may proceed to step 2.
If not, right-click on the start button and choose Explore and use Windows Explorer
to find the file and examine the extension (you want the extension to end in "wps").

2) Right-click on the file in the File Pane and choose "Open With...." and from the list scroll
down and select Wordpad (make sure the associate with checkbox is de-selected)

[Note: Wordpad is available in all OS's from 95 up to XP]

3) After the file is opened, the file contents will have some formatting as a header and
a footer, so copy everything in-between

[Note: your formatting will be gone, it'll just be text, but that should be minimal--you can
reformat easily, provided the file is simple in structure, as noted earlier]

4) Launch OpenOffice.org Writer and select "Paste"

5) Now reformat the document and you're done!

psaulm119 · OOo Enthusiast Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 135

With just the Word 2003 viewer (in XP), I was unable to view .wps files created with Works 6.0, on a computer running Windows ME. I went back to the ms site, and found this little utility, that allowed the 2003 Word viewer to read Works 6.0 files: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B9E11E83-F51B-4977-B572-8C042DF802C1&displaylang=en After installing this, the process worked smoothly. If you are getting error messages when you try to open up your works files, try installing this extra utility.

Thanks for the sticky, and for the idea. My dad had a ton of files that he wanted to read, that he has been unable to, since his old computer bit the dust.
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Paul

AndrewZ · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 7:36 pm Post subject:

I'm working on a Microsoft Works .wps import library for use in OpenOffice.org. The project the final stages of the first release (which just supports basic formatting), so I hope it gets into OpenOffice.org version 2.2 or 2.3.

(Basically, you would be able to open Works documents inside OpenOffice.org without Word or Works.)

Jones · General User Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 47

y_b_nrml · Newbie Joined: 11 Oct 2007 Posts: 4

First of all, hello everyone!

maxqnz · Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 11:09 pm Post subject:

Novell's release of OO opens Works files, in both its Linux and Windows flavours.
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bobharvey · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:13 am Post subject:

mssmssmss · Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:40 pm Post subject: converting old WP files...

Cairns, Queensland
2007 December 29

Recently, I converted about 10,000 Word Perfect for DOS files to Open Office 2.1. The first step involved bringing up the file in WP for DOS on the original platform and then saving it as a Windows file, say 95 or later. Open Office readily accepts such a converted file and then can be saved as an .odt file. On the other hand, it does a dreadful job if the WP for DOS file is imported directly.

Of course, it is a bit much to do all this by hand for 10,000 files, but I wrote scripts in both DOS and LINUX to manage the production run automatically. If someone is desperate, maybe I can save them time by providing them with the routines.

Cheers,

Michael

mssmssmss

Cairns, Queensland
2007 December 30

Here's a postscript to my last note about converting WP for DOS files to .odt ones. Actually, I have an even better routine for converting large numbers of WP files. It is a LINUX script that uses the convert routine. This script not only converts all jillion WP files to Open Office .doc files, but it also keeps the original date-time stamp, and maintains the original tree structure of subdirectories.

Sorry, I forgot to mention this yesterday.

Cheers,

Michael

y_b_nrml · Newbie Joined: 11 Oct 2007 Posts: 4

I managed to find an online file conversion site (www.zamar.com) that did a great job converting my .wpd and .wps files to .doc files. Unfortunately, it doesn't handle .wpg clipart files. I still have an old Corel disk (for Office 7) that I would like to occasionally grab some clip art from, but of course it's unusable in anything but Corel without conversion.

I found this http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgNo=168156 from an OO user and I DL'd the recommended viewer/converter program. However, it does NOT seem to support .wpg. Just curious if anyone here can tell me more about this software, or perhaps some other that might work?

huwg · Super User Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 890

y_b_nrml · Newbie Joined: 11 Oct 2007 Posts: 4

I noticed wpg is also on the list in the formats.txt file in the program, but when I try to view any wpg files on the Corel program disk, it doesn't work

I wonder if it only works if the image is in a document?

I don't know how that would be different though. Probably a dumb question. Embarassed

Thanks for your reply though, huwg. You're probably right that Corel has made internal changes since this version of Office (like I said, it's 7, from like, 1996 or so!)