Coverting Lotus 123 files to use with excel

[Muffin1947]

I have several hundred files on my old (windows 98se) Pc created with lotus 123. Unfortunately, my new pc already has excel 2002 installed. i've spent 4 days trying to convert any of my lotus files into a format which excel can read - the farthest i've got so far is an error mesage in the excel workbook quote "! Microsoft Excel - Cannot open lotus 123 file - OK" unquote.

That is an accurate reflection of my experience of excel so far. The only other advice from a user forum is to purchase 3rd party software from an unknown source to do what i thought excel might be able to do. Given that my confidence in excel to do anything useful has been dented - would i be better off to un-install microsoft excel and buy a new spreadsheet program from lotus ?

Any views ? Has anyone ever managed to get excel to recognise a lotus file ? If so, how is it done please ?

 

[SunTzuComm]

I've never had any trouble getting Excel to open a Lotus 1-2-3 file. Just open
it like an Excel file but specify "Lotus 1-2-3 Files (*.wk?)" in the file-type
drop-down list of the Open dialog. If that doesn't work, you may not have
installed all of Excel's features, in which case you need to reinstall Excel.

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
I've never had any trouble getting Excel to open a Lotus 1-2-3 file. Just open
it like an Excel file but specify "Lotus 1-2-3 Files (*.wk?)" in the file-type
drop-down list of the Open dialog. If that doesn't work, you may not have
installed all of Excel's features, in which case you need to reinstall Excel.

.
Thanks for your response - i've uninstalled excel and re-

installed. If i now go to "open file" in excel and select
lotus 123 as the file type i can get as far as the folder
containing my 123 files - none of them show up so i can't
click on any of them to do anything useful. If i change
file type to "all files" they show up fine. selecting in
this mode creates the error message (in a nice, neat
little box) QUOTE " ! Microsoft Excel Cannot open Lotus
123 file - OK" UNQUOTE.

This is about what i have come to expect from excel - if
it wasn't already installed and available on my pc i
would avoid excel like the plague. Question - is it worth
spending more days and nights - this is the 5th so far -
trying to get excel to do anything useful or should i buy
lotus and use that instead ? I'm tempted to think that
may be the fastest and most effective solution.

If anyone has any idea how to get excel to read, open,
recognise or even work with data created in lotus 123 i'd
love to hear how they did it !!

 

[Jim Cone]

Muffin,

I've never used 123, but I did find this in the Excel 2002 help file...
'----------------------------------------------------
About opening and saving files from other programs
Some of the content in this topic may not be applicable to some languages.

You can open a file created in another program, such as Lotus 1-2-3 or Quattro Pro, in Microsoft Excel the same way you would open
an Excel file. You can then save the file in its original file format or as an Excel workbook using the standard Excel save
commands. Files saved as Excel workbooks might not retain all of their original formatting, and features and formatting of an Excel
2002 workbook might not be available in other programs.

Changing the default file format for saving workbooks

If you work with others who use earlier versions of Excel or other spreadsheet programs, you can change the default file format used
to save workbooks you create in Excel 2002.

Supported Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro versions

Excel can directly open files from Lotus 1-2-3 versions up through 4.0 (*.wk?) and Quattro Pro for Windows versions 5.0 and 7.0 by
using the Quattro Pro converter. To open a file from a later Quattro Pro version in Excel, either save the file in an earlier
Quattro Pro format, or save the file in another format, such as Lotus 1-2-3 (*.wk?). Although you can open Quattro Pro for MS-DOS
and Quattro Pro for Windows files, there are some limitations to opening the worksheets.

If you didn't install the converter for Quattro Pro files when you installed Excel, you must install it before you can open files in
that format. You can't use the Quattro Pro file converter to save files. You will need to install the Quattro Pro converters from
the Microsoft Office Web site.
'-------------------------------------

Regards,
Jim Cone
San Francisco, CA

 

[Muffin1947]

Thanks for your reply - since then i've had an "official" response from microsoft direct - i'll happily post a copy if you like -

the official advice from microsoft is that if your version of excel won't open a file created in lotus the only solution is to go out and buy a converter from a 3rd party if you reallly want to use excel 2002.

I think this is one of the saddest examples i've seen a pathetic response. The impression one gets is that microsoft have set out to make life really difficult for anyone who tries to use a competitors product (lotus) in combination with their own thereby hoping to force excel users to drop lotus altogether. If this were to be the case - it suggests a level of business ethics and morality somewhere below that of spammers and porn merchants. I sincerely hope i am wrong - god help all of us if their response indicates the true ethical standing of microsoft.

 

[Jim Cone]

Muffin,

I just ran across this one by accident, for what its worth...

Whitepaper that describes migrating from Lotus 1-2-3 to Microsoft Excel 2000.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a1-e702-4409-b264-fe6d09c0fcb7&DisplayLang=en

Regards,
Jim Cone
San Francisco, CA

Thanks for your reply - since then i've had an "official" response from microsoft direct - i'll happily post a copy if you like -

the official advice from microsoft is that if your version of excel won't open a file created in lotus the only solution is to go

out and buy a converter from a 3rd party if you reallly want to use excel 2002.

I think this is one of the saddest examples i've seen a pathetic response. The impression one gets is that microsoft have set

out to make life really difficult for anyone who tries to use a competitors product (lotus) in combination with their own thereby
hoping to force excel users to drop lotus altogether. If this were to be the case - it suggests a level of business ethics and
morality somewhere below that of spammers and porn merchants. I sincerely hope i am wrong - god help all of us if their response
indicates the true ethical standing of microsoft.

-snip-

 

[Harlan Grove]

I have several hundred files on my old (windows 98se) Pc created
with lotus 123. Unfortunately, my new pc already has excel 2002
installed. i've spent 4 days trying to convert any of my lotus
files into a format which excel can read - the farthest i've got
so far is an error mesage in the excel workbook quote "! Microsoft
Excel - Cannot open lotus 123 file - OK" unquote.

....

Are your 123 files in 123 Release 4/5, .WK4, or earlier file formats, e.g.,
..WK3, .WK1 or .WKS? If so, Excel should be able to open them. If your files
are in '97 Edition' or subsequent .123 file formats, you're out of luck. The
only software that can handle .123 file formats are recent versions of 123
itself, recent versions of Corel Quattro Pro, and (per its marketing
material) DataViz's ConversionPlus.

If your files are in .123 format, you have just two choices: rebuild your
files from scratch in Excel, or buy and install one of these other packages
and use it to convert your .123 files to .XLS files. There are no other
alternatives, and no amount of whining will alter these facts.