Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:16 pm Post subject: File Open recognises Word documents as plain text
I am new to NeoOffice/J but not to computers. I have a couple of Word files mailed to me, heritage unknown but likely to be a post-W97 version. They open as text files, not Word. They have .doc at the end and show with the correct icon in the open dialog box. For good measure I used the OS9 app FileTyper to set the document type to "DOC ". It made no difference. Whatever I do, I see the "ASCII filter options" dialog box and the file is opened as plain text. This seems a rather basic problem but I'm stuck. Any help gratefully received.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:47 pm Post subject:
Did you try opening them using the "All Files" type in the open dialog? That will attempt to automatically choose the correct type for the document regardless of file extension. Neo/J also doesn't rely on creator codes directly in the open dialog, only extensions. To open up files that have creator codes only, you also need to use the "All Files" option. If you're still getting the plain text display, then either the documents sent to you were corrupted or they're in some other format that Word can save (e.g. RTF).
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:48 pm Post subject:
Also, if they were e-mailed to you as attachments from a Mac, make sure that you de-hqx or de-MacBinary or de-UUEncode or whatever the attachments before you try to open them. Generally, Mail.app will de-encode these kinds of intermediate single-fork formats, but I'm not 100% sure of other mail clients.
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:53 pm Post subject: Re: File Open recognises Word documents as plain text
Peter L wrote:
For good measure I used the OS9 app FileTyper to set the document type to "DOC ".
FWIW, the appropriate type code for Word docs is W*BN, where * represents the version of the document format (6, 8, or D for the older Mac-only formats).
What happens when you open the file in TextEdit?
My guess at this point is that either the file is corrupted or that it's an older Mac Word format (which are not supported by OOo and thus Neo/J).
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject:
The older Word 6.0 for Mac format should be supported. IIRC Word 6.0 Mac, fugly as it was, used the same file format as Word for Windows 6 since it was built from the Windows codebase with the fun MFC porting libraries and Visual C++ cross compiler (I still have a copy...kinda fun to play with). I haven't tried this format personally, but I suspect it should work.
Word 5 and earlier for Mac are not directly supported and may need to be converted to a Windows format (or RTF) to be imported into OOo/NeoJ.
The older Word 6.0 for Mac format should be supported. IIRC Word 6.0 Mac, fugly as it was, used the same file format as Word for Windows 6 [...] I haven't tried this format personally, but I suspect it should work.
Word 5 and earlier for Mac are not directly supported and may need to be converted to a Windows format (or RTF) to be imported into OOo/NeoJ.
I have one or two true Word 6 Mac documents that I've picked up from somewhere, and they do work.
For full supported-file-format-details, see NeoOffice/J File Formats in the wiki. (Of the older WinWord formats, only WinWord 5 is supported, anyway.)
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:49 pm Post subject: Additional information about Word files opening as text
Thank you for all the helpful tips. I tried All Files. I tried another Word file known to be good sent from a PC. I opened it in TextEdit and it looks like a genuine Word file, not RTF. Its file name ends in .doc I didn't try setting the file type as I assume the .doc ending and the fact that the open dialog shows a Word document icon is enough.
All this is in vain. NeoOffice/J still shows the ASCII dialog and reads the file as text. This is the first thing I have tried to do with the program. I can't say if it works properly in other ways because I haven't tried it. Is there some setting I have to change? Is the installation broken? I find that hard to believe as OS X installation seems to be very simple. Software that is dead on arrival is a bit disappointing.
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:42 am Post subject: Re: Additional information about Word files opening as text
Peter L wrote:
More ideas will be gratefully received.
Try either of the following:
1. Quit NOJ if you have it open. Navigate to ~/Library/ and temporarily move the NeoOfficeJ-1.1 folder to the desktop and relaunch NOJ. This will reset the preferences to the defaults. Try and open the document again. If this is successful, something was corrupted in your NOJ prefs folder. If not, move the folder on your desktop back (and overwrite the newer version) to restore your old preferences.
2. If that doesn't work, and TextEdit is opening the document OK, save it from TE as a Word document and open that version in NOJ... this should open fine in NOJ. _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:07 pm Post subject: Opening Word documents in NeoOffice/J - partial success
Thank you again for all your help.
I tried the suggestions on the files I had but they did not help. So, I used FTP to copy some files created with known versions of Word (8=97 and 10=2002 but saved as 97-compatible). These opened. Some older files, probably created with Word 6 (part of Office 4.3), did not open as Word. I assume therefore that some of the files I was e-mailed recently were from an ancient version of Word, probably Word 95 (= version 7?) as they have long filenames, which were not in Word 6. I'll try to confirm that if I can. Strangely, NeoOffice/J claims to be able to save in these formats. Surely, it should also read them?
If you think this is a real bug, I will try to post one of the non-confidential files on Bugzilla..
A less confusing thing for the program to do would be to follow through its recognition of the .doc suffix (confirmed by the icon in the file open box) and tell the user that it doesn't recognise the file contents as Word, list the versions it does know about and then offer to interpret the file as text. I realise that this level of HCI engineering is considered by some a luxury.
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