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Free wordprocessor that opens WordPerfect??

Aniej

Aniej

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 17, 2006
1,743
0
I do not need a whole office suite, rather I simply want the ability to smoothly open and edit WordPerfect documents. The only thing that is essential to me is that the formatting remains the same when the file is opened either on a PC that is using WordPerfect or in the application I hope you suggest. To be clear, I am not looking for a suite quite the size of NeoOffice, but rather just an application that can provide the functionality I described above.

Thanks a bunch.

p.s. don't laugh that I'm asking for wordperfect help, it's not my fault the whole federal judiciary still uses it!:)
 
Wanted to bump this because I'm having the same problem - interestingly, it's because I can't open a document on the DOJ's website. Your government dollars at work.

I've read about Abiword but it doesn't seem to have a downloadable version for Leopard - it says it's only compatible for OS X 10.2 through 10.4. Anyone have any suggestions for those of us stuck in the federal legal time warp?
 
neooffice.org

NeoOffice vs. Microsoft Office
Apart from these benefits, NeoOffice 1.2.2 has features that outshine Microsoft Office:

Feature NeoOffice MS Office 2004 for Mac
General:
Price (standard edition) $0.00 $349.95
Runs on Intel-based Macs No Using Rosetta
Type ahead functionality (optional) like many mobile phones have YES No
A logical, safe and suite-wide system for templates, so these are never accidentally updated YES No
Clean HTML code export (compliant with international web standards) YES No
Support for international standard ISO 26300 OpenDocument file formats Import-only No
Support for voice-dictation and similar software YES YES(?)
Unified User Interface, reducing learning time and costs YES No
Localized user interface (number of languages) 40* 7*
International spelling checkers and localized help 61** 12**
Support for text entry in non-Roman scripts including South Asian, East Asian, right-to-left and complex text layout scripts YES Some [1]
Supported scripts or languages:
Arabic YES No
Armenian YES No
Cyrillic YES YES
Cherokee*** YES YES
Chinese (Simplified) YES YES
Chinese (Traditional) YES YES
Devanagari & Gujarati (Indic languages) YES No
Greek YES YES
Hebrew YES No
Inuktitut*** YES YES
Japanese YES YES
Korean YES YES
Roman (Western and Eastern European languages) YES YES
Roman (Hawaiian, Northern Sami) YES YES
Roman (Vietnamese) YES No
Thai YES No
Other Likely**** Unknown
Writer (word processor):
A logical style system that does not invent styles based on your layout choices YES No
Functional bullet/list numbering YES No
The ability to import WordPerfect documents (thanks to the libwpd project) YES No
Calc (spreadsheet):
More conditional layout options for cells YES No
Style-enabled layout system for text and cells YES No
Impress (presentation):
The ability to export to Flash animation YES No
Superior (3D) font art possibilities. YES No
Click to expand...
 
Aniej said:
I do not need a whole office suite, rather I simply want the ability to smoothly open and edit WordPerfect documents. . . . To be clear, I am not looking for a suite quite the size of NeoOffice, but rather just an application that can provide the functionality I described above.
Click to expand...

Quite honestly those recommendations don't help in the slightest. I am always appreciative of any help someone can give small or large, but it's kind of annoying when my question clearly asked for alternatives to NeoOffice. I mean, just take a minute and read the question, not just the caption.
 
Aniej said:
Quite honestly those recommendations don't help in the slightest. I am always appreciative of any help someone can give small or large, but it's kind of annoying when my question clearly asked for alternatives to NeoOffice. I mean, just take a minute and read the question, not just the caption.
Click to expand...

Dude that's the thing. there are not many, if any, other alternatives that fit you criteria.

Neoffice might be big but it is the closest thing you are going to get to working with wordperfect files.


If you could better explain why you need the files to always stay compatible and in the Wordperfect format maybe we could suggest alternatives.
 
Aniej said:
From my original post...
Click to expand...
You have been given three excellent alternatives: OpenOffice, its Java-based sibling NeoOffice, and AbiWord. Three alternatives are a lot, but there are no others. You appear to have rejected each alternative for no apparent reason. Your response to the help that you have been given is a turn-off.
 
More alternatives

There are some other alternatives.
1) Run WordPerfect itself on Windows in either a virtual machine (like Q Emulator, Parallels or VMWare) or in BootCamp.
2) Run WordPerfect for Linux in a Linux Virtual Machine. I once had a WordPerfect for Linux disc, but could never get it to work - the license number would never validate. However, there are likely some used versions running around.
3) Also, isn't there something like "WINE" for Mac that mimics a Windows environment enough to run a Windows application on a Mac without actually virtualizing a PC?

These may not be great alternatives, but they are alternatives, eh?

If NeoOffice is too complex of a solution for the OP, then a virtual PC running WordPerfect is probably not going to work either.

If there was a modern version of WordPerfect that was available for Mac when I switched over I would have been very very happy. I really liked the way the WordPerfect suite worked (insert found memories here).

Cheers
 
MisterMe said:
You have been given three excellent alternatives: OpenOffice, its Java-based sibling NeoOffice, and AbiWord. Three alternatives are a lot, but there are no others. You appear to have rejected each alternative for no apparent reason. Your response to the help that you have been given is a turn-off.
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
Aniej said:
Quite honestly those recommendations don't help in the slightest. I am always appreciative of any help someone can give small or large, but it's kind of annoying when my question clearly asked for alternatives to NeoOffice. I mean, just take a minute and read the question, not just the caption.
Click to expand...

I don't see why you can't open it in NeoOffice and resave as another format. Then open it with something else. What _I_ don't see is how these recommendations DON'T help.
 
Aniej said:
I do not need a whole office suite, rather I simply want the ability to smoothly open and edit WordPerfect documents.
Click to expand...

Aniej said:
To be clear, I am not looking for a suite quite the size of NeoOffice, but rather just an application that can provide the functionality I described above.
Click to expand...

I don't see how AbiWord doesn't fit your needs. It's a stand-alone program and it can open WordPerfect files.
 
I don't understand why you have to open AND edit WordPerfect documents; why can't you convert it to another format supported by your favorite word processor?
 
als1626 said:
I've read about Abiword but it doesn't seem to have a downloadable version for Leopard - it says it's only compatible for OS X 10.2 through 10.4. Anyone have any suggestions for those of us stuck in the federal legal time warp?
Click to expand...

Oh yeah we should probably mention that it works fine on Leopard. The website probably hasn't been updated to include this fact.

However, I'm not actually sure you can save to WordPerfect. The WordPerfect export plugin is currently disabled, but I'm not sure that prevents you from saving a document already in WordPerfect format.
 
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