Older Office

[Walt Basil]

A friend of mine has an older version of Office with Word 5.1a. She also
refuses to upgrade to OS X because of the fear of not being able to use that
version of Word. Right now she is at OS 9.0 and still is able to use Word.
She wants to get a FireWire CD burner which will require 9.1. If she updates
to 9.1 will she break Word 5.1a?

Thanks

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Possibly. Word 5.1a is not supposed to run on OS 9. People have gotten it
to, but I understand certain features don't work, apparently inessential
ones. As far as I know, Classic is no different--possibly more complaints
about 5.1a not working.

So there's no guarantee 9.1 won't break it. Her call which problem she wants
to deal with. You could search the group archives to see if anyone is
running Word 5.1a under 9.2 or 9.1.

Depending on what she uses Word for, perhaps she would be just as happy
using Pages or AppleWorks under OS X. You might want to encourage her to
check them out, as the problems arising from obsolete software will not go
away.

 

[Walt Basil]

Thanks for the reply Daiya.

I've tried to get her to change but she is one of those that refuse it. She
loves her Word and knows how to make it dance, as she would say. Her whole
reason for the burner or Firwire HD is because she is running out of space.
Only 1.7 Gigs left.

She's got a copy of X she says, so maybe someday she will make the switch.

-Walt

 

[mmmmark]

She might try the Firewire HD without updating to 9.1. I recently got an
external Firewire/USB drive. I was needing to do some updating for my
in-laws over last X-mas holiday and was planning on using it to simplify
backup/install of a new OS.

I had read that it would require 9.1 to operate. I was hoping not to have
to update all the way to 9.1 just to back up info because I was eventually
taking them to OS X anyway. Well, the drive worked flawlessly under 9.0.4.
You might see if that holds true in your case as well.

YMMV.

-Mark

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Walt,

I have some sympathy with your friend. For those of us who think that 5.1a
almost had it right, queries like yours produce heavy sighs of nostalgia. As
Elliott Roper has been known to say, "Word 5.1a was such an improvement on
its successors...".

At our local Mac User Group the other night I led a discussion with members
who were still in OS 9, to see whether we could make the transition to OS X
easier for them. Almost all of them, for their own good reasons, were
determined to stay in [mainly] OS 8. But most acknowledged that one day
they would probably have to move when they could no longer get reliable
second-hand hardware, or wanted new software capabilities.

Extrapolating to Word 5.1a: being able to use it for 12 years is a real
achievement!

In 2001 I acknowledged that with all my clients being on the PC I simply
*had* to upgrade myself from 5.1a. It was quite a wrench, and I found a lot
of the features inconsistent and tiresome, like so many other people.  So I
started to write some notes to remind myself of the main new features.  They
have kept growing in the 4 years since, and are now about 170 pages long
(mercifully they are arranged dictionary-style). Although I now use Word
2004, the origins of the notes are a 5.1a user's perspective, so your friend
might find some elements useful if she ever moves from 5.1a.

The notes are titled "Bend Word to Your Will", and are available as a free
download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm).

[Note: The document is designed to be used electronically and most subjects
are self-contained dictionary-style entries. Be sure to read the front end
so you can use the document to best advantage and select the right settings
for reading it.]

But there is a lot of sense in Daiya's suggestion of Apple's successor to
Appleworks, Pages. Although it's only in version 1.0 and has a few things to
be shaken down, a demo session I went to recently showed that it is a superb
piece of software. Who knows -- maybe your friend will be needing to change
about the time that version 2 comes out!

Based on following newsgroup discussions on Word 5.1a / OS transitions for a
long time now, I agree with Daiya when she says "So there's no guarantee 9.1
won't break it".

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 7 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[Walt Basil]

Thanks for the reply Clive. I have passed it on to her along with
instructions on how to migrate to Panther. I wouldn't suggest Tiger since
that slows down the OS considerably on slower machines (because of Spotlight
I'm sure) when compared to Tiger.

-Walt

Hello Walt,

I have some sympathy with your friend. For those of us who think that 5.1a
almost had it right, queries like yours produce heavy sighs of nostalgia.
As
Elliott Roper has been known to say, "Word 5.1a was such an improvement on
its successors...".

At our local Mac User Group the other night I led a discussion with
members
who were still in OS 9, to see whether we could make the transition to OS
X
easier for them. Almost all of them, for their own good reasons, were
determined to stay in [mainly] OS 8. But most acknowledged that one day
they would probably have to move when they could no longer get reliable
second-hand hardware, or wanted new software capabilities.

Extrapolating to Word 5.1a: being able to use it for 12 years is a real
achievement!

In 2001 I acknowledged that with all my clients being on the PC I simply
*had* to upgrade myself from 5.1a. It was quite a wrench, and I found a
lot
of the features inconsistent and tiresome, like so many other people. So I
started to write some notes to remind myself of the main new features.
They
have kept growing in the 4 years since, and are now about 170 pages long
(mercifully they are arranged dictionary-style). Although I now use Word
2004, the origins of the notes are a 5.1a user's perspective, so your
friend
might find some elements useful if she ever moves from 5.1a.

The notes are titled "Bend Word to Your Will", and are available as a free
download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm).

[Note: The document is designed to be used electronically and most
subjects
are self-contained dictionary-style entries. Be sure to read the front end
so you can use the document to best advantage and select the right
settings
for reading it.]

But there is a lot of sense in Daiya's suggestion of Apple's successor to
Appleworks, Pages. Although it's only in version 1.0 and has a few things
to
be shaken down, a demo session I went to recently showed that it is a
superb
piece of software. Who knows -- maybe your friend will be needing to
change
about the time that version 2 comes out!

Based on following newsgroup discussions on Word 5.1a / OS transitions for
a
long time now, I agree with Daiya when she says "So there's no guarantee
9.1
won't break it".

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 7 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

Thanks for the reply Daiya.

I've tried to get her to change but she is one of those that refuse it.
She
loves her Word and knows how to make it dance, as she would say. Her
whole
reason for the burner or Firwire HD is because she is running out of
space.
Only 1.7 Gigs left.

She's got a copy of X she says, so maybe someday she will make the
switch.

-Walt