Document rescue!

[ccrn]

Help!

I have hundreds of documents I cannot access after installing windows office 2000 premium.

After the old office suite was removed they all converted to word pad and who knows what else. Now, I cant open themn with word, word pad, or note pad. Ive tried reinstalling my office 2000 premium to no avail. Ive tried converting them to work, rtf, text etc etc.

Now, I have hundreds of documents I cant open!

Can anyone help me with ideas to rescue my documents??

Isnt there a way to convert them all??

[EzyStvy]

What was the "old office suite?"
What happens when you try to open documents?

[ccrn]

Im not sure what the prior version office suite I had. It was the trial version that came with a gateway laptop that is about five months old.

I didnt want to purchase it when the 90 day trial period ended as I had this version of office 2000 premium already.

When I try to open the older documents the characters look like boxes, lines, and commands. On one of my user accounts I can open them with wordpad but cannot cut and paste them to word documents. Unfortunately, the majority of my documents are on a user account that I cant open them at all with anything.

Thats another confusing thing, in my owner account all documents converted, in one user account they converted to WPS files that I cannot open, and in another user account they didnt convert at all.

I should add that I changed all three accounts to adminstrater accounts and reinstalled the suite. No change or improvement.

Thanks for any help you can give me. I realize now I should have saved them to disc but didnt know better at the time-

[pam123]

The Microsoft Word Viewer : http://bizgrok.com/help/msproducts/
I've never had occassion to use this but it sounds like you need it.
Set a restore point before you install it so that you can back out if it doesn't work and you have to uninstall.
Another possible solution is the word processor in Open Office which is compatible with all versions of Microsoft Office even when those version are fighting it out with each other.
Same deal as "Viewer" if you decide to install it.

edit : This is the link to Open Office : http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

Both programs are free.

[EzyStvy]

Just an FYI-> .wps files are MS WORKS files.

[mairving]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy Just an FYI-> .wps files are MS WORKS files.

And Works is the spawn of the devil.

Depending on the version of Works, you will either have to download a converter for Word, which only works for older versions of Works files, get Works installed and convert them to a readable format like maybe .rtf or buy and install Word 2003 which opens most Works word processor documents.

If you want you can email me one of the files and I can see if Office 2003 will open it.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy Just an FYI-> .wps files are MS WORKS files.

Thanks for the heads-up but unless Gateway is now installing badly out of date programs as trial software on it's recent laptops those were Microsoft Word files.


edit : yes here it is. : http://userful.com/support/ms-works

Recent versions of Microsoft Works (Works 2001, 2002, 2003, etc.) include Microsoft Word which writes by default to the supported (.doc) format. Older versions write by default to Microsoft's proprietary, obscure, and poorly supported (.wps) format. Even Microsoft's own Office Suite won't import .wps files without first downloading and installing a special converter. To import legacy Works files (.wps versions 3.x --> 6.x) on DiscoverStation first use Microsoft works to save them in the widely supported Rich Text Format (.rtf) (.rtf is supported even in old versions of Works).

If you have access to Word 2000 or 97, an alternative approach is to install the appropriate Works converter linked below and then save to .doc or export to .rtf.

It looks like the first viewer I linked to, or the one in this post, should do the trick.
If mairving's 2003 does the job he'll have to find a copy.

[mairving]

The kicker, pam, is that Works Suite which ships with some new computers includes Works 8 along with Word 2003. Works 8 has a spreadsheet and a word processor. The word processor in Works saves files with a .wps extension. Word 2003 may or may not open them.

Converters are available, however, in this case won't do much good since a Word 2000 converter won't open the newer Works files. It will only open some of the older Works files. OpenOffice will also open some of the older ones but not the newer ones.

That's why Works is demon spawn.

Funny, at a place that I once worked, someone sent in a resume that was in wps format. It was sent to me because no one could open it. I converted it to Word and emailed it back along with a note not to hire the person if they didn't have any better sense than to send files in wps format.

FYI, even with a converter you won't be able to open a wps file by double-clicking it. You have to open Word first, then use File/Open/All file types and open it that way.

[pam123]

The kicker, pam, is that Works Suite which ships with some new computers includes Works 8 along with Word 2003. Works 8 has a spreadsheet and a word processor. The word processor in Works saves files with a .wps extension. Word 2003 may or may not open them.

Simply incredible and they charge for it to

My apologiies EzyStvy, I didn't know they were still using .wps for anything and assumed Office 2000 was glitching.

[glc]

It would REALLY help if you went into your folder options - view - and UNchecked the box to hide extensions for known file types - and posted the extensions of the files that you can't open. The icon you see is meaningless - the extension is what really matters.

[ccrn]

I unclicked the hide extensions of known files but they dont appear have changed. When I click propeties of a file I only get the wps ie below:

Combat Action Badge.wps

BTW, I did have works and deleted it becuase I hate it. Now I guess Im screwed.

Thanks for all the suggestions-

[glc]

Then you have a bunch of Works files that need to be converted as already discussed. Reinstall Works and convert them to .rtf is my suggestion.

[ccrn]

I guess I used poor judgement in deleting office works (sigh).

Live and learn right?

Thanks again for the help I appreciate it-