Converting Lotus WordPro files

Article contributed by John McGhie

Viewing

Two converters have been recommended in the newgroups: KeyView and DataViz's Conversions Plus.

KeyView is a viewer, not a converter.  It enables you to view and print Lotus SmartSuite documents without having the originating application. It lets you view word processing documents, spreadsheets, pictures and presentation graphics.

Converting

To convert documents from Lotus Word Pro to Word, follow these steps:

1. On the Lotus File menu, click either Save As or Import/Export.
2. If you select Import/Export, select the option to export your document into another file format.
3. Select one of the following file format options in the List Files Of Type list in the Save As dialog box or the "Export to what file format" list in the Import/Export dialog box:

• Rich Text Format (RTF)
• MS Word for Windows 6.0

4. For best results, select Word 6.
5. Click Export to convert the file, and then open the document in Word.

After you convert the file to Word 6.0 format successfully, you can open it in any current version of Word.  When you do, it pays to "Save As" and change the type to the current format for your version of Word.

Do not expect a "perfect" result.  Various objects will not convert.  Trying to reverse the conversion is likely to result in the loss of a lot of formatting and some entire objects.