Transferring my Word Perfect files to OOo

[konzaprairie]

Hello. We need to transfer all our documents in Word Perfect which we used on our now dead PC to our new iMac. They are being downloaded from Carbonite right now onto our Sony laptop and then we will attach an external hard drive to this laptop and transfer all the files and then transfer those files to our iMac.
What do I need to know to do this? Please don't worry about using simple language because we are hiring someone to do this for us since we are new to Macs, are senior citizens, and are very afraid of losing our data. Thanks for helping.

[floris v]

From what I have seen, OOo can open WordPerfect files, which would suit your purpose, but it can't save in that format.

[konzaprairie]

From what I have seen, OOo can open WordPerfect files, which would suit your purpose, but it can't save in that format.

Thanks. Do you mean that we wouldn't be able to use the files that we keep adding things to? For instance my husband has lots of files that we add to--lists of books read, etc. Then we update certain other lists too. This doesn't sound good. Is there no other way? I would be fine with the permanent files--those we wouldn't update but not happy about ones we would want to update.

[thomasjk]

Since your not going to use Worperfect, open your wordperfect files and do File-->Save As. The native OOo format .odt will be selected by default. Save the file. Then you can edit the newly saved files as needed.

[konzaprairie]

Thanks Tom K. So there is no special software I would need to buy in order to read the files that were made in Word Perfect on a PC, uploaded to Carbonite from that PC, downloaded to another PC (first one now dead) and then transferred via external hard drive over to a Mac? This is all way above me and thus why we are hiring someone to do the transfer, but I want to be ready for him. Since Word Perfect doesn't make a Mac version, will the Mac be able to recognize these files? Or does Carbonite just restore files to our hard drive and then it's up to us to put them into a program like Office or OOo?

[thomasjk]

OOo should be able to recognize your Wordperfect files as long as they have the .wpd extension. Conversion can also be down at www.zamzar.com. This might be useful if you have a lot of files to convert.

[RoryOF]

Once you have opened a .wpd file and saved it as openoffice .opt you can continue to work in that format. Use / File / Save As to do the transfer, saving to .odt format (make sure "Automatic file name extension" is checked in the Save As window). You should gradually transfer all your old files to the new format, as support for reading older formats such as .wpd may disappear from newer versions of OpenOffice/LibreOffice.