anyone heard of winworks???

[elacious]

Working on an old computer. Client purchased a new computer and I transferred all the data. Everything seemed to convert ok except one program - Winworks (I think by spinnaker software?? When I tried to open it in word i got those funky squares and it said spinnaker sowftware copyright1993)
So i can't open these files. I need to convert them somehow, Problem is, I can't find any info on winworks. I thought maybe it was a real old version of msworks, but works wont open them. Office2000 wont (I tried every possible converter) The file extension is WPD which you would think was word perfect, but that didnt work either. I just downloaded more file conversions from ms web site...its still installing but i thought i'd pick yer brains in the meantime!!

[3fingersalute]

I think it used to be called PFS Window Works if that helps at all!

[Jeff the Brit]

This rings a vague bell from years ago. Have you tried opening one of these files in Notepad? I seem to recall a file format that had all the text in plain view without any control characters and other guff scattered through the text. Simple cut and paste job to word pro of choice.

[elacious]

Hey thanks guys...
I actually discovered who made the program and all, but I am still having not much luck. I actually managed to copy the whole program to the new computer and believe it or not...it actually runs! But... when i open a file it shows up blank. i was just sort of clicking around and somewhere it said there were no fonts installed. I messed around a little, copying the fonts within the program to the font folder, but still no go. I did discover that I can "save as"and change to another file type such as word 2.0 but there are about 1000 or more files, plus spreadsheets, and database files as well.I thought maybe a file conversion program would do the trick ...? So far havent found any that support that file type. i think what i might do is just convert the most recently used files for the time being just so they can at least work, while i try and figure this out. GRRRRRR

[jayhawk88]

What version of Word are you trying to open them in? Perhaps an earlier version of Word (95 or 97) would have the correct conversion utilities for these files? Just a longshot.

[ibennetch]

Believe it or not I occasionally do work on a system that has it. Still left over from the 3.1 days. To answer the question, though, I don't know of any mass converters for it. I know that most modern programs (word, etc) do not import these files properly. I'll post if I find something useful. Sorry I can't be more help...

[Jeff the Brit]

Been scratching my head for a while. I did a job like this for a customer who'd just got a Win98 machine. I vaguely remember copying the whole winworks folder onto the new drive and the prog still worked, presumably didn't need any dll files in windows\system. I did phone the customer to see if she remembered what I did, but it was about 2 years ago and her memory's worse than mine !

[elacious]

Hey thank you guys for all your help...
wanted to give you all an update...
I did copy the whole directory over and the database files and the spreadsheets opened fine, but the word processing files wouldn't open. I discovered a useful tool though...in word 2000 you can open the file and "recover text from any file" (Its on the bottom where it says files of type) All the data came up fine,Except it lists all the fonts used etc...and they lost all the formatting which was still better than not having the data at all. Needless to say the client was very impressed and I made about $500 in labor off the whole job