open word 5.1 documents in word 2004

D

dknightd

Hi,
Is it possible to open word 5.1 documents in word 2004 (or X) and keep
formatting intact?
 
D

dknightd

How? When I try it gives me a list of converters to use, none for old word
documents.

Is there a translator available? If so, where can I find it?

Thanks
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Hi,
Is it possible to open word 5.1 documents in word 2004 (or X) and keep
formatting intact?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you mean by formatting. Line and page breaks are likely to
change if you use Word 2004.
 
E

Elliott Roper

dknightd said:
How? When I try it gives me a list of converters to use, none for old word
documents.

Is there a translator available? If so, where can I find it?

Thanks
Click to expand...

In that case, something else is going wrong. Word 5.1 docs should open
straight up without getting that converter panel.

Prior to 5 might be a problem. I get the converter panel on docs from
1989 but not 1991. I can't remember when I got Word 5.

Try this for converters
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q119889/
 
E

Elliott Roper

dknightd said:
How? When I try it gives me a list of converters to use, none for old word
documents.

Is there a translator available? If so, where can I find it?
Click to expand...

A little bit of follow-up. I played with some very old documents,
probably from Word versioin 1 for Mac. If I use the recover text from
any file option in the converter panel, I get surprisingly good
results.

After copying all but a little bit of garbage at the end to a new
document where all my current styles and shortcuts live, it is
remarkably quick to rip the little ducklings into line.

It's so good, I wouldn't bother with a converter.

I wish I had somethng for the Multiplan docs on the same archives ;-)
 
D

dknightd

OK thanks. That might be my issue. These docs probably predate 5.1
(although 5.1 opens them fine) Luckily I still have 5.1 on disk, and it
seems to run, though not let me print. I can probably work something
out. I tried a couple, and I can print them to postcript, then convert them
to pdf, the formatting is not perfect, but close enough and at least the
information is still in there - at least as long as I can keep 5.1 running.
I guess asking MS to be able to open a document created
using its software from 15 years ago might be asking too much.

I remember Multiplan ;-) I think we used one of the early versions of excel
to
open those.
 
E

Elliott Roper

dknightd said:
OK thanks. That might be my issue. These docs probably predate 5.1
(although 5.1 opens them fine) Luckily I still have 5.1 on disk, and it
seems to run, though not let me print. I can probably work something
out. I tried a couple, and I can print them to postcript, then convert them
to pdf, the formatting is not perfect, but close enough and at least the
information is still in there - at least as long as I can keep 5.1 running.
I guess asking MS to be able to open a document created
using its software from 15 years ago might be asking too much.

I remember Multiplan ;-) I think we used one of the early versions of excel
to
open those.
Click to expand...

Heh! It's time for the Texas two-step. [1]

Get 5.1 to save your ancient docs as 5.1 then 2004 will open them fine.

1. Me = Charrles Durning fan from way back.
 
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