New Apple OS Catalina

Morbier

I've read that the new Apple OS Catalina is 64-bit and won't run 32-bit apps. (No idea what that means, but I don't think it's necessary to do so).

I realise that my Office 2011 will not work after the update, so I'm trying to prepare. I've started using Pages instead of Word and will probably have a go at Numbers instead of Excel. I've been opening individual Word files in Pages and then using 'save as' with a Pages extension - in an effort to convert my Word documents to Pages documents.

Two questions:

1. Is there a quicker way of doing this, i.e. so I can convert all my Word docs in one go?

2. Will I have to do them all before I update - I wasn't sure if Catalina would 'recognise' the Word docs.

All help gratefully received!

mksysb

I know nothing about macs, but I think libreoffice is now available. If it's anything like the linux version you won't need to convert any of them as it will read microsoft doc format.

stragglebod

And more to the point, will read Microsoft's docx format.

Morbier

mksysb wrote: »

I know nothing about macs, but I think libreoffice is now available. If it's anything like the linux version you won't need to convert any of them as it will read microsoft doc format.

Thanks for the reply. I'm staying with Pages as it's free and (obviously) works well on a Mac. It will read my Word docs too.

I'm more interested in the conversion possibilities/process.

mksysb

llibreoffice is also free, but why do you need to convert if it will read the word docs?

Morbier

mksysb wrote: »

llibreoffice is also free, but why do you need to convert if it will read the word docs?

Because when I update to the Catalina OS, I will have to delete Office 2011 as it won't work any more. Therefore it seemed prudent to convert my Word documents. Pages and Numbers are the obvious apps to use on a Mac as a) they are made by Apple specifically to work on a Mac and b) they're free!

So, accepting my reasons for conversion, I need to know the best way to do it.

Hope that helps you understand?

Chino

Morbier wrote: »

Because when I update to the Catalina OS, I will have to delete Office 2011 as it won't work any more. Therefore it seemed prudent to convert my Word documents.

I think the point being made is that, as Pages supports Microsoft Word documents, why do you need to convert your Word documents at all? Just use Pages to edit them directly as Word documents.

From https://www.apple.com/uk/pages/:

Teaming up with someone who uses Microsoft Word? Pages makes it simple. You can save Pages documents as Word files. Or import and edit Word documents directly in Pages. Most popular Word features are supported too. Now it’s no problem to work on the same project. Even if you use different apps.

chiny

No guarantees in what follows !

I gave up with Office 2011 on my iMac with Mojave. Probably I have in the low 100s Microsoft Word & Excel documents, of which a few dozen have been opened in Apple Pages/Numbers with zero problems, the rest left unexamined. I'm happy to rely on the expectation that every document would open if required; or if really stuck, trying one of the various utilities or freebie word processor programs, or even finding someone who would open a single problem document for me.

zagubov

Why bother updating the OS? With Apple's lack of back-compatibility, you may have to buy updates for loads more of your software.

What improvement are you expecting that's worth all this hassle?

It's not as if you can easily revert to the old OS if it knocks out too much of your older software.

Morbier

zagubov wrote: »

Why bother updating the OS? With Apple's lack of back-compatibility, you may have to buy updates for loads more of your software.

What improvement are you expecting that's worth all this hassle?

It's not as if you can easily revert to the old OS if it knocks out too much of your older software.

I always update so I can continue to get subsequent software and security updates. That's important to me.

The only software I have that won't work after I install Catalina is Office 2011. I don't have much else, mostly word processing, photo stuff - all bought from Apple App Store.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'all this hassle' ?

zagubov

I've found I've lost the ability to open old files whenever I've updated my MacOS, many times in the past.

Their lack of support of old software when they bring out new OSs seems to always lead to expense and loss of access. Productivity software, utilities, backup software, and so on. I'm still using databases from Appleworks 6 that I need to dig out old machines with Snow Leopard to access.

It's all too much Emperor's New Clothes to me. If you need it for business reasons, you can probably justify the expense, I suppose. I usually don't find updating OSs to automatically be useful, let alone moneysaving