“In recent Mac 911 entries I’ve looked forward to what will and won’t work with Lion,” Christopher Breen writes for Macworld.
“So now, a brief look back. And yes, I mean you die-hard AppleWorks users,” Breen writes. “If you want to use a Mac running Lion, your time has run out.”
Advertisement: Limited Time: Students, Parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Breen writes, “AppleWorks won’t work. So, what to do with those AppleWorks documents?”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Does somebody REALLY use AppleWorks 2011?
If so that is not die-hard it is die-stupid.
its not so much that people still use it… It just that they may have years worth of old documents still in the AppleWorks formats.
It’s not that big of a deal really, as there are still ways of running AppleWorks through emulation or virtualization. I’ll just set up a snow leopard virtual machine that I can run for “incompatibles”
I introduced my father to the Mac and AppleWorks about 15 years ago. Now 78, he still happily uses AppleWorks regularly on an eMac running MacOS 10.5. And he accesses the Internet via dial-up. Change won’t come easily.
an eMac running on 10.5… you’ve gotta be kidding me… it must take 10mins to boot up.
Nuttin’ wrong with 10.5. I don’t see any compelling reason for him to upgrade the OS.
I didn’t know Apple had done an AppleWorks 2011 upgrade.
… but, not really. My wife has quite a few older files in that format. Files she hasn’t worked on in years. Lots of years. It’s about time she revisited them and did a modest update, if only in the file type.
Some are still using Apple Works? Wow, they are hardcore diehards!
Time too change and update thru that little Mac App Store!
A little help for us AW / Claris Works die hards, especially those with iPads, would be appreciated rather than……
Claris / AppleWorks was pretty awesome. I only switched when Pages came-out. BTW, pages opens .cwk docs.
Exactly. Get iWork before upgrading. Open all docs in appropriate counterpart. Resave as native format. Done! Will take only a couple of minutes at the most.
Not all of them. If you used the awesome mixed mode features of Appleworks like putting database/spreadsheet table or cels into a word processing or drawing document Pages fails to open the document.
No program in or out of existence offered such easy workflow and mixing between word processing, database, spreadsheet, and painting.
I can see the appeal of Appleworks to some people.
Count me in. I really want AppleWorks for iPad. The baseline productivity app against which all others must compete.
We have switched to iWork as soon we I could but our school has thousands of documents in works, and many of them are drawings (which replaced but not completely macdraw), there has never been an easy and inexpensive replacement to the full works suite. And iWork in is still slow on some 3 yr. old computers. Still No rush to be on Lion, but I wish apple wouldn’t use an ax so big when preparing to the future
(like Lion WIki requiring IE 9 for windows)
To anyone old enough, this could be a big deal. Converting those old Docs to…… Pages?
Please do not say Wor…….
Not just AppleWorks. I am in deep mourning for Eudora.
Eudora definitely had its charms. But don’t forget how easily Eudora’s email database could get corrupted, which usually resulted in a complete loss of saved email because the program would refuse to open.
I tried using Eudora, once, many moons ago. Never saw the appeal really. Too bare bones for my liking and the UI, don’t even talk about it. I then turned to the mail program that came with Windows XP, Outlook Express, which I found much easier to configure and use.
Now I’m on Mail.app and Sparrow Mail on OS X Snow Leopard. Waiting to switch to the Lion version of Mail as I like the interface. I like the new iCal interface on Lion too. Just waiting for the bugs to be shaken out before I make the jump. In any event, I think Mail is far better than Eudora.
“Too bare bones for my liking…”
Wow, you did a *really* poor job of checking it out! Eudora has such a dedicated user base because it included so many features, several of which have *never* made it into any other email client.
Have you checked out OSE? Its basically a re-imagined Eudora buit on thunderbird.
Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea of what “OSE” is. Any suggestions?
AppleWorks was great, but its text-rendering was awful. Pages is like a refreshing summer breeze by comparison. But in terms of sheer functionality, AppleWorks was a truly great piece of software.
But AppleWorks is also truly obsolete. The first version of Pages came out six years ago, and AppleWorks was already extremely long in the tooth even then.
AppleWorks was long in the tooth because decisions were made to let it be. The iWorks Suite, with no database, drawing or painting capabilities is beautiful, but lacks precision. Bento is eye candy for the weak minded.
There is no replacement for AppleWorks, only a series of substitutes.
AppleWorks was awesome.
I had a buddy who was an appleworks maniac. It was an impressive package.
Integrated suites like that kind of went away for some reason. I remember there were more than a couple out there on the PC side. Lotus Works and Microsoft Works were the two I remember the most on the PC.
MS Office is integrated if you take the time to learn the VBA programming side and OLE. Its still no where as easy or seamless as Appleworks was for a casual user.
Wonder why integrated suites died off
yes, the typography was horrible compared to today’s cocoa standards.
I still have AppleWorks running on an older PPC machine. I still have clients who refer me to people when they need help converting/recovering these files and I still have the occasional student using it at home. AppleWorks was still being taught at my College 4 years ago. If you still need AppleWorks you don’t have to upgrade to Lion. (:
There is nothing out there that is as easy and slick as an Appleworks Database. I have over 3,000 files on one that I have created. No Lion for me.
I miss Claris …….. It was great ……
The article mentions AppleWorks painting files and suggests $95 EasyDraw.
GraphicConverter has always offered a large number of import/export options. GraphicConverter X has 210 import format options and 84 Save As format options. I don’t know if that includes AppleWorks painting files (not familiar with the file extension), but I suggest taking a look at GraphicConverter for $40.
The name of the app is actually EazyDraw, with “z”.
IMPORTANT: if you need to open AppleWorks drawings, you should get the 95$ version from the website – the cheaper EazyDraw you can find at the MacAppStore won’t open those legacy files. It is beyond me why the publisher doesn’t make this clear by naming the more expensive version “pro”.
Anyway, download the demo at the website, because (at least for me) EazyDraw couldn’t open ALL of my AppleWorks drawings; the newer ones (done under OS 9) didn’t work. There might be another piece of software for that: Intaglio, which can open legacy files as well. Demo at the website available. I like both those apps, very much like our favourite older drawing apps… Intaglio is slicker and adds some bitmap quartz effects, which is good for designing buttons and icons, eyecandy. EazyDraw is better at the technical drawing stuff (and at vector only stuff), feature rich but a bit cluttered.
There are other, new vector apps, like iDraw for iPad (waiting for the new mac version), Sketch (beautiful and powerful but crashed a lot in the beginning. Maybe it’s better now), or Artboard (easy to use, beautiful…)
I loved Claris/AppleWorks, but to be honest I don’t miss it, I’m fine with iWork.
I still use Appleworks for some things even though I have many options. Sometimes simple is nice.
For longtime Mac users who have an older Mac (G4 or G5) lying around, the solution for continuing to use AppleWorks or other PowerPC app (with no direct Intel equivalent) is simple. Keep using it…
Run that older PowerPC-based Mac on your local network, with fastest possible wired connection to your router. Run Tiger or Leopard on it, and set it to do Screen Sharing. On your newer Intel Mac running Lion, use the “Share Screen” feature from a Finder window. This launches the Screen Sharing app showing the old Mac’s Desktop in a window on your new Mac’s Desktop. You can go to Full Screen App mode to give the old Mac’s Desktop its own “Space” on your new Mac.
It will feel like running a “virtual machine,” but with an “actual machine.” The old Mac will be running the PowerPC app natively, avoiding Rosetta’s translation inefficiency (and possible incompatibility). There is no sound, but sound is not needed for something like AppleWorks. And if the old Mac happens to run Tiger (not Lion), it can run even more ancient Mac OS 9 apps using Classic mode.
Call it your “Mac legacy server.” 🙂 Mine is a Power Mac G5 (that has other functions).
brilliant! thanks!
The one feature I truly miss from the old days is “Publish and Subscribe”. Apple really screwed the pooch when they sliced that puppies throat.
My dad uses AW spreadsheets everyday. I’ve converted some of them to Numbers ’09, but some of the functions he uses in AW aren’t available in Numbers.
My dad also has some documents in AW that Pages simply can’t open. In fact, the only program I’ve found that will open them is AW.
While Pages is great it isn’t the ultimate solution, yet. As for Numbers, you may remember that when Numbers came out in 2007 we were told to sit tight while it was developed into a product that would be superior to anything available. That has yet to occur. In fact, I didn’t see much difference between the first version of Numbers I bought and the ’09 version I have now.
While I understand Apple wanting to press on to the future (and sell more software), they have yet to produce anything that is truly a replacement for AW. Which will ultimately cost them what they seek to do, sell more software.
AppleWorks? What new fangled stuff is that. I’m still using ClarisWorks and jolly good it is too.
If you need access to these older programs that won’t run on lion, just run vmware fusion and load leopard on that. Best of both worlds.
You can’t (legally) install the client version of Snow Leopard (or Leopard) as a virtual machine. You can install the server version, but before Lion, the server version of Mac OS X cost a lot more than $49.99 extra. The client version of Lion can be installed as a VM. So, I suppose you could run Snow Leopard as the host OS, use VMware Fusion, and run Lion as the guest OS.
However, unless your Mac has gobs of RAM, it will be a stretch. Lion needs 2GB of RAM. Running Snow Leopard as a VM requires at least 1GB of RAM. And that’s before running applications. Someone who still runs AppleWorks is not likely to have a high-end machine lots of excess RAM.
I good word for Appleworks. it was discontinued in 99: I think. It was wonderful in education. You could open a spreadsheet in the word processor. You could add links in the spreadsheet that would move you from page to page within the document. You could turn a WP page into a webpage with links. It had a cadre of clipart that it would access online from within the program. You could make a drawing window within the database or spreadsheet or whatever. It was a unique swiss army knife program. With these and other features you could actually use it to make educational software. I still have it but don’t use it much any more. When Every student was given an Apple laptop in Maine around 2002, and I was a computer teacher it was THE essential program to have on the laptop. It will be missed.
Oh, Appleworkks on the Apple II was also a breakthrough program. Command line driven but so cool.
Hey, Apple II AppleWorks was text-based, but it had “menus.” It wasn’t “command line.” 🙂
The more direct predecessor to the Mac’s AppleWorks is AppleWorks GS (originally called as GS Works) for the Apple IIgs. Claris bought it and renamed it AppleWorks GS. Some of the key developers went on to create ClarisWorks (which was later renamed AppleWorks). AppleWorks GS was graphical and had a similar set of productivity modules that were integrated into one application; you could create documents with elements from various modules. It was probably the most complex application ever created for an Apple II computer.
One interesting thing about AppleWorks is that, because of the strong ties to education, there was a Windows version of AppleWorks. This was in the early 1990’s. About the only other thing Apple was doing on Windows back then was QuickTime.
Hey, that’s a solution if you can find a disc with AppleWorks 6 for Windows. Run a Windows XP (or even 95/98) virtual machine using VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, or the free Virtual Box. Install AppleWorks on it. Run it all under Lion.
I am soooo frustrated! I am still using an Appleworks data base because I cannot find a new one that is as easy to use and gives me all I need for my purposes! I am trying to find another similar database and am using Filemaker Pro. Boo! I have been trying to simply highlight more than one record, and the program won’t let me simply highlight one record, and then hit my option/shift key and highlight more! I have look in the “help” area and cannot find a way to do it! I am soooo frustrated.
Exactly! You can’t just highlight a range of entries and copy/paste them into a new DB at year’s end, as one could with Apple Works. A basic feature in any application, but not with the overpriced FileMaker application.
I had designed a customer database/daily invoice/monthly statement and sales per month/year info all easily interconnected within AW. This cannot be done with Numbers! iWorks needs a DB!
Some good ideas floated in these comments and I probably end up staying with SL for a long time or run it on a separate business machine.
Sigh, I know I am a dinosaur, but I use Appleworks almost exclusively to draw yacht layouts for my business. I have hundreds (perhaps thousands) of layouts.
I am using an imac with OS X 10.6.8 and may need to buy a new computer soon. Mine is showing signs of getting tired. My IT guy was able to make Appleworks run on my machine with a few glitches. I have to add the .cwk file extension manually each time I save a document … but aside from that, it still works well. I don’t know what I am going to do when I get a new computer as I need access to my layouts.
I am blown away that Apple just unceremoniously left us all in the dark, with no suitable replacement. I tried Iworks and it simply can’t do what Appleworks does. I think it is a rather pathetic programme personally.
I bought my first MacIntosh computer in 1984 and have not used anything else since. I too am in mourning for Eudora Pro but discovered that Microsoft Entourage was a reasonable replacement. But it too is a dinosaur. I have a lot of standard replies that I kept in my Eudora libraries and because of the way the Entourage file system is set up, I am still able to keep and use my library.
I am so screwed if I have to change over to a new machine and Lion. Not only is Entourage a dodo bird, but I will lose Appleworks too and countless hours worth of drawings and layouts that I desperately need. That’s pretty much my whole business right there.
I am not really ready to retire, but I don’t think I am up for a steep learning curve or for trying to recreate all my stuff in new programmes. Thanks loads Apple! Your “advances” have set me back a great deal and perhaps out of business.
It would be nice if Apple took into account that although they may be coming out with all sorts of very cool things, some of the old things were way cool too and some of us want to keep them!
All you need to do is to clone your operating system onto an external Drive
Using the macintosh DISK Utility, it is fairly simple to do.
Once it is done you have a external drive that you can start any machine up with, (Unlike the Windwoes world)
Then you can use this external drive as a startup drive on the newer computer.
It will have whatever OS you cloned or restored, so you can use all of your old applications that will not work on Lion Or mountain lion.
It is sad that apple did what they did.
I am a windwoes and macintosh consultant going on 18 years now.
I have dozens of clients that are in their 70’s and 80 and even 90s who rely on Appleworks
It was one of the best apps that Apple ever made.
You can do more with this program than any Office suite, ever could do, for instance all you had to do to make you .cwk file open up in word was to change the .cwk to .doc and word could open it up.
MSWord and MS Works were not even compatible with each other for years.
Any way think for those of you that want to call your grandparents dinosaurs,
Just think about it.
Without them you would not even be here.
Which probably would be more preferable than you lonely lost life.
Oh yeah I almost forgot
I have probably 60,000 gigs of external drives full of Appleworks, Photoshop and Video files. ( and assorted other things)
And each of the drives can be used a a startup drive to start any of the 10 machines that I own.
I can even take my drive to your house and use it on your machine to start up with and fix it.
AppleWorks hasn’t died! Just buy a refurbished PC with Windows XP. AppleWorks works fine, as does Claris Home Page for your web site. I use both daily in Spanish. Why update to something that won’t produce like these two gems?
Macs are wonderful, except for their new programs. I still use my old 9.2 for both programs as well as Tiger 10.4.
You can use apple works in mac os mavericks using virtual machine