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ClaraT · Mar 4, 2004, 05:48 PM

Hi,

I've been using my new ibook (G4) OSX for about a week. I know that some of my old
programs from 9.1 will run in Classic but I haven't used this feature yet so I haven't installed my old Word 98 or Filemaker 4.0.

Guess I'm concerned with extensions or something going weird. Is this a big deal? Does the look of the computer go back to OS 9?

Also do I need to actually install Word 98 to get the upgrade? A few years ago a friend gave me her disks to load Word onto my machine but I think that will keep me from being able to get the upgrade.

And one more question which I'm confused about. What is the difference between Office:Mac (Office v.X) and Office 2004? I've seen the promotion for getting Office 2004 for free when you get Office:Mac.

Appleworks seems to be pretty good--not as sophisticated as Word, but can Appleworks attachments be opened by Word users?

Lots of questions I know. I did search the forums for this topic but didn't come up with anything. And couldn't find anything on Apple's site about using the Classic environment.

thanks,

ClaraT

austeros · Mar 4, 2004, 05:57 PM

you should be able to use word 98 in classic, but that will just be nasty stuff, 2001 and v. X were nice upgrades from that. if you want to try dont worry about extensions too much. will only factor in when running classic, whcih i doubt youd do too much. you can still manage extensions if you like, but its almost not worth it anymore. you can start it up and set options in the system preferences ,and they even got a menubar icon in 10.3.2 which is nice

office v. x is a few years old now. not all that bad, guess the jury is still out on 2004, since it hasnt been released. nice to get a free upgrade, i did this with 2001/vX. compatibility is doable, but its far easier just to use word.

id upgrade, word 98 was, well bad. but it will work

ginoledesma · Mar 4, 2004, 07:29 PM

Classic works fine, for the most part. Unless you have extensions that access the hardware directly, they'll usually work fine under Classic. Actually, if you can get away with it, you can disable extensions and just use the basic ones needed for the system to work. You can configure these through the Classic system preferences.

MS Word 98 (and 2001) works fine under Classic. I've had to use that when I tried out Mac OS X when it first came out, and Office Mac vX Test Drive was just too slow for me. While you don't need MS Office 98/2001 installed on the system to upgrade to MS Office X, you will need the original set of disks to qualify (legally).

I believe you'd have to send them in to Microsoft (or an authorized reseller) to get the upgrade disks.

MS Office 2004 isn't out for the Mac yet, so the latest copy you can get is MS Office X for Mac. I believe they have the promo going-on that if you purchase a copy now you're entitled to a free upgrade to 2004. Sound like a good deal to me.

Alternatives you could use are AppleWorks 6 and OpenOffice 1.0.1. The former is easy and simple-enough-to-use, though lacking in table features (or at least the flexibility I've come to appreciate in MS Office). The latter is, unfortunately, an older version and is slow (compared to the 1.1 release not yet available for the Mac).

If you just need a quick and dirty way of editing MS Word documents (without the need for fancy features), TextEdit in Panther will be able to read/write those documents easily.

MountainMac · Mar 4, 2004, 08:11 PM

Originally posted by ClaraT:

Guess I'm concerned with extensions or something going weird. Is this a big deal? Does the look of the computer go back to OS 9?

Yes.

Appleworks seems to be pretty good--not as sophisticated as Word, but can Appleworks attachments be opened by Word users?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that Appleworks .doc files can be opened in Word.

MM

mitchell_pgh · Mar 5, 2004, 06:49 AM

It will cost you, but upgrade the applications and save yourself some headaches.

OS X was meant to run OS X applications. It's amazing that we can still run Classic applications, but it's like running non PPC software on a PPC. Doable, but not recommended...

neilw · Mar 5, 2004, 09:12 AM

I used Office 98 for a while under Classic before upgrading to OfficeX. Works perfectly well, and zippier than OfficeX, too. I still keep it installed on my machine just in case.

I'm as happy as the next guy to have completely stopped using Classic, but it does work pretty darned well. What annoyed me most were cosmetic issues: the jarring change in appearance between the native vs. Classic apps, and the comparatively crappy text rendering.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 5, 2004, 09:26 AM

Originally posted by neilw:
I used Office 98 for a while under Classic before upgrading to OfficeX. Works perfectly well, and zippier than OfficeX, too. I still keep it installed on my machine just in case.

I'm as happy as the next guy to have completely stopped using Classic, but it does work pretty darned well. What annoyed me most were cosmetic issues: the jarring change in appearance between the native vs. Classic apps, and the comparatively crappy text rendering.

Yes, the classic to OS X effect is jarring...

I also hate launching Classic.

wataru · Mar 5, 2004, 10:01 AM

Originally posted by ginoledesma:
OpenOffice 1.0.1

Until something newer is released, the prefered incarnation of OO.o is NeoOffice/J. It doesn't need X11 at all, and in many ways acts like a normal OS X app. If you want Word compatibility but don't want to shell out the cash, be sure to check it out.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 5, 2004, 10:28 AM

Someday, Apple, Sun, IBM, AOL, Netscape, Oracle, Dell, Gateway, SGI, etc. are all going to get tired of taking up the A$$ from Microsoft and agree to fund an open source Office package.

I'm talking about REAL funding AND advertising.

- Word-processing
- Spreadsheet
- Database (simplistic)

I'm sure Microsoft would find a way to kill it, but it would be entertaining to say the least.