Translating WriteNow Mac files

December 31, 2011 1:27 PM

How can I translate thousands of files written in an old Macintosh word processing program called WriteNow, into a format that is easily accessible, probably Microsoft Word or RTF? It's a problem. I'm a writer and I used WriteNow exclusively for about 15 years. Now it is unsupported and an orphan. A translator program I used to use, MacLink Plus, no longer works on the current Lion operation system for Macintosh. Here's a link that describes WriteNow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WriteNow
posted by Alex Marshall to computers & internet (10 answers total)

My hunch is you are going to need either AppleWorks 5 (not 6) or you can try one of the solutions here

http://forums.macnn.com/82/applications/351451/os-x-app-can-open-writenow/
posted by crazyray at 1:31 PM on December 31, 2011

My hunch is you are going to need either AppleWorks 5 (not 6) or you can try one of the solutions here.

the OP has Lion so AppleWorks 5 won't work either.

It sounds like what you'll have to do revert back to a version of Mac OSX that supports MacLink Plus, convert them to a modern format and then you can move back to Lion.

I don't know if it is still working, but for a while the new version of VMWare would let you load Snow Leopard on in virtualization which is a violation of the Apple TOS. I don't know if you can do this now or if you'd have to somehow trick to do this. Another option is to find a Windows-based app that will be able to convert the old Apple files (I remember DataViz made one way back in the day but it probably is dead too).

The last option is to use open the files in a modern text editor. What you'll probably see is a bunch of gibberish and then text you want. Copy the text you want into a new modern file format and repeat. You will have to open each file, copy the required text, save as new file, etc for all of them. You may be able to automate some of it with scripting.

I did this recently with some floppies I found with files I wrote on my Atari. Talk about dead languages. The files were in for Bank Street Writer. Decades ago I got them from the Atari Cassette to the 5.25 floppy. And eventually the files but not in readable form to a 3.5" PC floppy where they sat for years. I only had a few files I needed to manually convert and I wasn't a writer so they were small. It was a long rainy day project. But if I had thousands of files I'd probably given up.
posted by birdherder at 2:11 PM on December 31, 2011

The download link at the bottom of the Wikipedia page says Writenow will run under a few different emulation options (links to guides for each). Could you run it and save in an alternative format?
posted by Boobus Tuber at 2:30 PM on December 31, 2011

Take a look at some of the solutions here
posted by Hazy Star at 2:33 PM on December 31, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've had good luck with Conversions Plus (www.dataviz.com, I believe). They used to be able to convert absolutely anything.
posted by Melismata at 2:59 PM on December 31, 2011

Perhaps you could pick up an older mac with an operating system that can still run Writenow. At least you could access copies of your files. Hopefully Writenow or Maclink Plus will let you save the files in an alternative format on the old mac and then bring them to the lion machine.

I like birdherder's idea of virtual version also
posted by bhdad at 7:06 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]

Word 2008 has the ability to import WriteNow files using the built-in "Recover Text From Any File" filter. Choose File menu > Open, point it to the file you want to open, choose "All Files" from the Enable pull down menu in the Open File dialog box, and click Open. Seemed to work fine with the few WriteNow files I could find on my computer.

I don't know if this could be scripted to do more than one file at a time. My test files had simple formatting, so I don't know if this conversion will preserve more complicated formatting. It may also introduce some artifacts. But it worked just fine for opening old WN files and bring them into Word.
posted by mosk at 11:12 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]

Have you thought about using SheepShaver (http://sheepshaver.cebix.net/) to emulate OS 9.0.4 to run your old application and output the files into RTF from that? Then you should be able to put them into any other format you like in Lion.
posted by Hexidecimal at 11:48 AM on January 1

VirtualBox is truly incredible freeware that will allow you to install an old Mac OS on your current machine.

I've never used a Mac as a host, but it runs even better than the expensive equivalent, VMWare, on my Debian-based Linux machine.
posted by nosila at 5:27 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

Thanks for all the suggestions. VirtualBox is something I should check out. Ditto Word 2008. I think I have a copy of that somewhere. That would be the easiest solution, if it works. Running a translator program on an older Macintosh, as Birdherder suggested, would almost certainly work but would be laborious.
posted by Alex Marshall at 9:47 PM on January 1