Transferring Word documents on a 'System 7 ' Mac to a PC

[PaulF]

Version: Older version
Operating System: Older version

I have some Mac floppies with MS Word documents which I would like to transfer to PC format, to read on MS XP.
(There are also some Clarisworks 4 docs, but I'm told these can't be re-formatted.)
I'm not really in a position to buy software for this at the moment. It is for use in church work.
I would appreciate any help or comments

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Paul:

PC Word will cheerfully read those Word files. The trick is to get the PC
to read the floppy.

Old Macs had a different floppy format from PCs. There was a utility around
that would allow Windows XP to read a Mac floppy.

Here it is:
http://www.macdisk.com/mden.php3

Note: It might take a bit of fiddling around to get that utility to go --
the more modern the version of Windows, the less it will like it. Ummm...
This presumes you can find a Windows machine that still HAS a floppy drive:
these days, most of them don't.

Do you still have the Mac that wrote the floppies? If so, all but the very
oldest Macs will format a floppy in PC format and write files to it.

Older versions of Word on the PC will make an attempt to get those Claris
Works files open, also. Support for the very old file formats began being
removed from Word on the PC around Word 2002, due to security concerns with
the converter software.

However, if you can find a computer that has been upgraded from Word 97 or
Word 2000, AND the owner had the foresight to install ALL the Text
Converters, that PC will still have the importers for all of those files

The PC should go back to Mac Word version 2

Hope this helps

Version: Older version
Operating System: Older version

I have some Mac floppies with MS Word documents which I would like to transfer
to PC format, to read on MS XP.
(There are also some Clarisworks 4 docs, but I'm told these can't be
re-formatted.)
I'm not really in a position to buy software for this at the moment. It is for
use in church work.
I would appreciate any help or comments

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[PaulF]

This is PaulF again from March 14th. I have been unable to get back to Mactopia for some time. One responder (J McGhie) asked if I had a Mac. I do have the old one which produced the floppies, (M Word 6 on Mac discs), but the memory is too small to go on line, e.g to email as one suggested. Any other suggestions?

PaulF

 

[John McGhie]

My suggestion was that you save those files to floppy on the old Mac, then
install MacDisk on the PC, which will enable it to read the old Mac floppy
format.

Have you tried that?

If you can't do that (maybe because your PC doesn't have a floppy...) then:

I would imagine that Mac has an Ethernet card in it?

In which case, connect it to the PC using an Ethernet, and you can connect
to the PC's file system directly from the Finder using SMB, and save the
files directly onto the PC over the cable.

Look on the Apple website for explicit instructions for how to get SMB
running on the old Mac, I can't remember.

You could also go the other way: but try not to. You have to install AFP
support on the PC, and doing that in Windows can be a bitch. It CAN be
done, I've done it. So if it's the only option you have, come back and
we'll find you someone who knows how.

Alternatively, you can pop the hard disk out of that old Mac and plug it
into a free drive bay in a new PowerMac. The new Mac will cheerfully read
the old hard drive.

Hope this helps

This is PaulF again from March 14th. I have been unable to get back to
Mactopia for some time. One responder (J McGhie) asked if I had a Mac. I do
have the old one which produced the floppies, (M Word 6 on Mac discs), but the
memory is too small to go on line, e.g to email as one suggested. Any other
suggestions?

PaulF

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]