Opening Works docs without Works...

[deganawida]

Question--

 

Do any of y'all know any program that will open a *.wps (Microsoft Works Text document) other than Works and leave the document relatively intact? One of the people here at work was an idiot and thought that Works was the same as Word, and his report is due today. It's a substantial report, and I'd like to keep it intact as much as possible (Notepad/Wordpad pulls it up as ASCII text, but sorting through all the formatting code is a bitch). We don't have Works here, and it's an unsupported program to boot, so I'm tempted to tell him "Tough Luck", but I figured that I'd try to help anyway. All the sites that I've found with info on it either just identify the file extension (which I already knew) or require a paid subscription (which I can't afford nor will I do for just one person. Any help that y'all can provide would be greatly appreciated.

[Judge Hades]

That is a toughie and I don't think there is one. I remember a way back when I was transfering my files from Works to Word a while back. The only thing I can think of is to have him go back an use the comp that had Works before and save the files in plain text format (base Notepad file) and then open it with Word. That is the only way I know of without dealing with the reformating problems with ASCII.

[deganawida]

Thanks, Visc. I had the guy try that suggestion on his home comp yesterday (that's the Plain Text suggestion). Of course, with his limited computer skills he couldn't do it, and he came in this morning demanding that I fix it. "Unsupported software" means nothing to him, only that I'm "the computer dork" and so it's my job to fix everyone else's mistakes (when it's something here, no prob, but we tell everyone not to use Works). I guess I'll just tell him he's SOL. Thanks again.

[Phosphor]

Sounds like telling him he's SOL would be the most satisfying resolution to the matter.

 

[Judge Hades]

Oh now, be nice. We were all noobs once.

[LostStraw]

http://www.userful.com/support/ms-works

 

I hope that helps you out

[Jumjalum]

Maybe try OpenOffice? It's free and is supposedly great. I don't know if it's compatible with Works format but I know it's great with MSOffice compatability. It's a 45MB download.

 

http://www.openoffice.org/

[LostStraw]

Maybe try OpenOffice?  It's free and is supposedly great.  I don't know if it's compatible with Works format but I know it's great with MSOffice compatability.  It's a 45MB download.

 

http://www.openoffice.org/

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's not compatible with the Works format, at least 1.1.3 isn't, which is the latest stable build.

[Grandpa]

I don't think anything is compatible with the Works format. Not that I've found anyway. Maybe someone in the Georgia State government IT dept would know because that is about all the state uses for sending out documents by email that you are supposed to fill out and return to them. I could go on, but suffice it to say it's as frustrating as any other dealing with state gov't morons.