Word 98 on MacOS 10.4

[Martin Brüggemeier]

Hi!

Just one short question: can anyone tell me if Word 98 can be used properly
with MacOS 10.4 (Tiger)?

Thanks in advance!
Martin

 

[CyberTaz]

Short answer - no. Word 98 is not OS X compatible.

Longer version - AFAIK it can run in Classic mode & you can run it in OS 9
if you have a dual-boot system. I honestly have not had occasion to do
either, so I can't directly comment on performance. Previous comments from
'regulars' here suggest it can operate OK.

You'll probably get some more detailed response from a few others.

HTH |:>)

 

[Anybody]

Short answer - no. Word 98 is not OS X compatible.

Longer version - AFAIK it can run in Classic mode & you can run it in OS 9
if you have a dual-boot system. I honestly have not had occasion to do
either, so I can't directly comment on performance. Previous comments from
'regulars' here suggest it can operate OK.

You'll probably get some more detailed response from a few others.

My own experience on three different types of Mac running Mac OS 10.3
and 10.4 is that Word 98 and Word 2001 crash constantly, although I
can't work out whether that is because "Classic" is near useless or
just the normal hopelessness of Word. Either way, they can crash for
pretty much any reason: trying to print, coming back from printing,
saving files, opening files, trying to simply edit files, etc., etc.,
etc. :-(

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Short answer - no. Word 98 is not OS X compatible.

Longer version - AFAIK it can run in Classic mode

That means it _is_ compatible. AFAIK, all versions from 98 onwards are meant
to be compatible in OS X, caveat Classic. (Word 5 is not compatible, by
contrast.) But people have claimed there are problems. You'd be far better
off upgrading to Office 2004 before the day they stop allowing an upgrade
price from 98.

--
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.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

I would second what Paul says:

There are two things missing from Word 98 that will hurt you a lot --
Unicode and nested tables.

Unicode is more serious. Word 98 cannot handle the double-byte Unicode
character set. OS 10.4 makes heavy use of it. So you will get all sorts of
Font/Character transposition problems.

HTML-style nested tables were introduced with Word 2001 and modern versions
of Word produce them automatically. Word 98 will degrade any such documents
it edits.

As Paul says, Word 98 is a bridge too far: you would be best advised to
upgrade if it's at all possible.

Cheers

That means it _is_ compatible. AFAIK, all versions from 98 onwards are meant
to be compatible in OS X, caveat Classic. (Word 5 is not compatible, by
contrast.) But people have claimed there are problems. You'd be far better
off upgrading to Office 2004 before the day they stop allowing an upgrade
price from 98.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Paul-

Perhaps I should have phrased my reply more delicately, such as 'Word 98
does not run native on OS X'.

Since Classic mode is optional and requires some version of OS 9 in order to
operate, I have a tendency to think of Classic as an emulation mode similar
(not identical) to VPC. I don't consider Windows XP Pro or Office 2000 to be
OS X-compatible, either, even though I run 'em on my G5.

Thanx for the clarification.

Regards |:>)