Recs for opening .doc files?

[OLu]

Can anyone recommend a way to open .doc files without purchasing Word? I
saw something on the Web about DOCtor and icWord, the former is free but
didn't work well for me (some garble) and the latter costs $19.95, but I
was hoping there would be some other way besides paying the twenty for
the rare occasional I need to do this. TIA

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Can anyone recommend a way to open .doc files without purchasing Word? I
saw something on the Web about DOCtor and icWord, the former is free but
didn't work well for me (some garble) and the latter costs $19.95, but I
was hoping there would be some other way besides paying the twenty for
the rare occasional I need to do this. TIA

Open them in TextEdit. Needless to say you don't get every last detail of
complex Word features, but you do get a lot more than just the text.
Basically you get the text formatting, similar to what's available to an RTF
file, including fonts, alignment, spacing, Bold, Italic, indents, etc. There
are other apps (like OpenOffice) that offer more features and fidelity for a
small shareware price but if you object to paying $20 for icWord (don't know
it), try TextEdit. It can even save documents in Word format.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Can anyone recommend a way to open .doc files without purchasing Word? I
saw something on the Web about DOCtor and icWord, the former is free but
didn't work well for me (some garble) and the latter costs $19.95, but I
was hoping there would be some other way besides paying the twenty for
the rare occasional I need to do this. TIA

One way is to use the free OpenOffice. The flavor I currently recommend
is NeoOffice/J, since it has an OS X GUI:

http://www.neooffice.org/

The 1.1 version is very stable. I've used the 1.2 Beta version has been
OK for me in light use.

 

[mmmmark]

Can anyone recommend a way to open .doc files without purchasing Word? I
saw something on the Web about DOCtor and icWord, the former is free but
didn't work well for me (some garble) and the latter costs $19.95, but I
was hoping there would be some other way besides paying the twenty for
the rare occasional I need to do this. TIA

Another option is the Word Plugin from Schubert-it. It displays text only
previews in your browser window. This option is especially useful for
viewing abstracts online, for example. Probably similar overall to opening
docs in Textedit.

http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginword/


-Mark

 

[OLu]

One way is to use the free OpenOffice. The flavor I currently recommend
is NeoOffice/J, since it has an OS X GUI:

http://www.neooffice.org/

The 1.1 version is very stable. I've used the 1.2 Beta version has been
OK for me in light use.

thanks

 

[Albert Koning]

Another option is to use Abi Word. This is word processing only and is a lot
smaller than Neo (or Open) Office.


http://www.abiword.com/

 

[JosypenkoMJ]

Open them in TextEdit. Needless to say you don't get every last detail of
complex Word features, but you do get a lot more than just the text.
Basically you get the text formatting, similar to what's available to an RTF
file, incl uding fonts, alignment, spacing, Bold, Italic, indents, etc. There
are other apps (like OpenOffice) that offer more features and fidelity for a
small shareware price but if you object to paying $20 for icWord (don't know
it), try TextEdit. It can ev en save documents in Word format.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

I tried opening a .doc file in TextEdit and all I get is the binary
display of what's in the file (data and commands). However, .rtf files
display ok. Is my OS = 10.2.4 too old ?

On the side, the reply buttons on these forum pages do not work right
in Netscape 4.7, OS 9._ - they just put me at the top of the page. I
have to turn off cookies, reload the page, and turn cookies back on.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

The MSFT web portals that I assume you're using to access these newsgroups
are definitely not Mac-friendly! I suggest you either use Google or,
better, a newsreader. You'll find information about how to do both here:
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/AccessNewsgroups.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice; better yet, use another
browser.)

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[JosypenkoMJ]

I'm uaing :

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/

which was pointed to from MS.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Google probably doesn't care if something doesn't work in an OS 9 browser,
since very few people are browsing the web in OS 9 by now, I'm thinking. In
fact, I was just working on a site and decided I didn't care either. But
you can try telling them about it.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I just realized you're in OS 9. Sorry, but you're going to have problems
with more sites than just Google, and it will get worse yet with time. If
you're not able to upgrade at this point, I suggest using a newsreader.

Beth

 

[Aaron Shepard]

The problem probably isn't OS 9, it's Netscape 4.7. That browser is
REALLY antiquated, and has been for years. It never did properly
support CSS, even for its time. Your best bets are Internet Explorer
5.1 and Netscape 7.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Aaron's right. But I can tell you from experience that IE 5.1 doesn't
properly support CSS either. What's more, as of Dec. 31, 2005, it is no
longer supported by MSFT. In other words, it's a deprecated browser.

I suggest installing whatever is the most current version of Netscape or
Firefox that is also compatible with OS 9.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[JosypenkoMJ]

The problem probably isn't OS 9, it's Netscape 4.7. That browser is
REALLY antiquated, and has been for years. It never did properly
support CSS, even for its time. Your best bets are Internet Explorer
5.1 and Netscape 7.

I probably should also mention that the Google pages sometimes display
partly blank with Style Sheets on.

I found Netscape 4.7 has a reallly bad problem with its cache - on
large pages it can get lost and stall when downloading. It also has a
nasty habbit of refreshing the page from cache once a page is
downloaded (why ???), wasting time. Solution was to turn off the cache
by setting its size to 0.