Files too "old school" for Spotlight?

[bluebomberman]

I just discovered something weird: Spotlight does not index the contents of all my Word docs from my first computer. All it could do was look up the 8-letter filenames.

Apparently, Word for Windows 2.0 files are impenetrable to Spotlight. Anybody else got some "old school" files that Spotlight can't look up?

 

[mad jew]

I've got a feeling that's the same for anything pre-Office X, but maybe that's just Entourage...

 

[gekko513]

Spotlight support requires a plug-in thing for each file type or item type, so having Spotlight support is more the exception than the rule. I'd still say Apple and partners have done a good job of supporting the most commonly used file types.

 

[VanNess]

What version of Tiger are you using? Spotlight was supposedly improved as of 10.4.6 for searching the content of "older" Word docs, so if you're not using 10.4.6 or later, it might be time to update.

 

[bluebomberman]

What version of Tiger are you using?

Tiger 10.4.8 (current as of now - yeah, I'm an update freak)

Spotlight's indexed all my Word docs since fall 1997, which ran Windows 95 and Office 97. But Word for Windows 2.0 docs are not indexed. I wonder if there's a special plugin, as suggested above, for that format. Looking now...

FOLLOWUP: Nope, no plugin. Guess the only thing I can do is use the Mac OS X feedback page.

It's not a big deal. I'm not necessarily dying to have all my high school reports indexed. But it'd make my life easier while I'm forced to sift through some old docs.

 

[mad jew]

It's not Apple's prerogative so much as Microsoft's to release a plugin for older Word documents. Apple will probably just tell you to go bug Bill.

 

[bluebomberman]

It's not Apple's prerogative so much as Microsoft's to release a plugin for older Word documents.

Nuts. Doubt I'll see anything before Office 2007.

 

[mad jew]

The pessimist in me says they'll never add support for earlier Word documents since they won't make any money from it and there aren't many users who need such support.

I wonder if opening specific older files in Word X or 2004 (or something recent) and using the Save As feature to create a new document would bypass this though.

 

[bluebomberman]

The pessimist in me says they'll never add support for earlier Word documents since they won't make any money from it and there aren't many users who need such support.

I wonder if opening specific older files in Word X or 2004 (or something recent) and using the Save As feature to create a new document would bypass this though.

Actually, I can open them just fine. Word 2004 can open all sorts of odd formats (Word for Windows 2.0 and apparently some Appleworks files), but it can't save in most of those legacy formats.

I guess I can convert them all to modern Word files, but that's a case in which the workaround would take more time than just slogging through the finder and looking for my old school docs. Plus it would change the timestamp on those docs. which would confuse me further...