Word 5.1 & Word 2001 compatibility

[beachycove]

Can anyone comment on the possibility of success were I to use these two versions of Word to edit the same files, back and forth between the two versions, over a period of time, and with a good deal of changing between the one and the other?

There are ways of making them work together, I realize (e.g., the "Word 98 Converter" for Word 5.1), but with what trouble? Has anyone tried this and and failed, or is the process as seamless as the Word 98-2004 transition proved to be?

 

[Cory5412]

I think if you save the document in 2001 as a file in Word 5.1's file format you *should* be good to go, I might even recommend starting the file in Word 5 and then taking the file to your machine with Word 2001, and seeing if it'll open and save. Then, define formatting and the types of Office features you'll be using with Word 5.1, and try not to stray into the newer functionality in Word'01 that will require a change to the new file format, or that Word 5.1 won't be able to handle. From there, you should be good to go.

That's approximately how I do it when I'm sharing documents between computers with Office 97-2004 and Office 2007/2008.

The biggest thing is whether or not Office01 will open the word5 document and save it.

If it won't, does word5 support rich text format?

 

[beachycove]

Word 2001 does that, yes.

I can work within those constraints, but can Word? What I am worried about is that Word might bugger up the code, inserting random pieces of garbage, each time I make the change. It is not prone to leaving you with clean text.

Further to this, I noticed your post about wanting one day to have a 'lab' just now. This is exactly what I am planning here, to press a variety of old hardware into service so that, as the spirit moves, I can use a PowerBook 1xx one day to write, a G3 the next, whatever (I have around 30 working units of one sort and another). The key thing about Word 5.1 for my purposes (and a major reason i am not thinking of using Nisus 5 or 6 instead) is that it runs happily on System 6 as well as 7, and I'd like to have a System 6 IIci, IIsi, and Classic II in the 'lab' as well as, say, some Quadras and PCI Macs.

 

[benjgvps]

I have had good experience with saving in RTF. I think I opened a transfered Word 4 (IIRC) on my PC with Word 2007.

 

[beachycove]

Ferreting around further today, I came across this, which suggests that bad things will indeed happen if the documents are going to be at all complex or long. Better not go there, I guess.

There are alternatives: Nisus Writer 5.1.3/ 6.0.1 will work on anything from a 68030 to a ppc under Classic in X, while Nisus Compact will work under System 6, and apparently co-exists with Nisus 5/6 files fine. MacWrite Pro will work nicely under Systems 6-MacOS8.6 (I find it very unhappy under 9). WordPerfect 3.5e will work under MacOS 7-9, 68k or ppc. I could also, I suppose, draft text on any program I wanted, and then import the text into FrameMaker, which I have an old copy of, and deal with it there. I can, lastly, restrict myself to Word 2001, which might be good for peaceful relations later down the line with the publishers.

I thus have some options.

EDIT:

I just installed the converter and tried opening a Word 2001 file in Word 5.1 on a Quadra 650, MacOS 7.6.1. It starts the process, and then freezes the machine.

 

[jhvaughan2]

I have had good experience with saving in RTF.

I second this suggestion. I used to work in an office with word 4 & 5 on the mac and word for dos and word for windows on the pc. .RTF worked across all with all formatting changes remaining intact.

Your biggest problem between platforms will be the use of styles, any special section formatting or footnotes. Sometimes table specs will also get lost. But basic character/text formatting comes across fine in .RTF.

 

[Cory5412]

I second the idea of using RTF as a writing format, and framemaker as a presentation format, or saving presentational tasks for a newer computer, you can do them on a copy of the document saved in the native format of whatever app you're dealing with, which is what I've done with some of my bigger writing projects.

 

[Scott Baret]

I have Word 98 and it goes back to 4.0 for compatibility. RTF is almost universally supported by word processors made after 1992 or so...even MacWrite Pro has RTF.

I agree, RTF is the best format for transporting documents around. I use it all the time to move MacWrite Pro files to OS X or Windows (although I'll sometimes use the iBook to convert them to Word 97/98/2003).

 

[beachycove]

Haven't RTF standards changed a lot in the last 15 years?