Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I work with a computer-illiterate teacher and I teach the same subject he does. He has lots of assignments and things saved in a format called .lwp, which I think were made in an ancient copy of Lotus Word Pro. Can I read these files in OpenOffice somehow?

I tried opening one (it should be a page or two) in Writer and it did not work. I got a window asking about ASCII filter options, and when I hit OK I got 82 pages of gibberish. Each page is mostly blank except for the first couple lines. The first page looks like this:

WordPro#########LWP7##############ÿÿÿÿ####.#### ##3#####YƤ1##—B######Word Pro Text File/DFB‰#¤#A##?#À#@#P#P#P#P#P-P#P#P#@#ŽSLCSBº»ŒG¬ZŽGê#I#@@#@

Check out LibreOffice (http://www.libreoffice.org): I read somewhere that they're rolling out a feature that will import .lwp documents. Hold on, here's where I saw it: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/new ... and-fixes/

Just be aware, it's a new (maybe still experimental) feature and may not be completely stable or robust. The results could be less-than-perfect

You might also try www.zamzar,com which offers an email service for file conversions. I don't know if the format you have is available, but check it out.

I've tried Zamzar, it doesn't do lwp files.

Thanks for telling me about LibreOffice. It doesn't process lwp files perfectly but it does work better than anything I've seen so far.

Thanks for the help!

LibreOffice 3.3(.1) indeed opens .lwp documents. I'm not sure if the file association is made by default, but it will work if you start LibreOfficeWriter, then click on File –> Open and select the appropriate files. I have no idea how good will be the conversion; as with most "foreign" formats, the more complex your original document is, the more likely you'll have formatting surprises. Definitely one of the first things you should do after opening a file is to convert it and save it in the native (odt) format.

Finally, if that doesn't work, I'm aware that AbiWord also works with lots of foreign formats. No idea if it does anything at all with lpw files.

There appears to be a viewer utility downloadable from Lotus which allows the file content to be viewed, selected All, Cut and Copy into MS Word, so OpenOffice might be substituted for Word.
http://www.internet-guide.co.uk/Convert ... -Word.html

Saturday, March 19, 2011

LO includes the Go-OO lwp import filter. Win32 users can also use the reader Lotus released which is a cut down version of Keyview Pro. The problem with importing lwp format is that it is really four formats.

Phil

It could be worth buying a copy of Lotus Smartsuite from eBay - they go for a few pounds or dollars.

I run a very, very old version of Lotus Smartsuite Millenium Edition Approach database (it says for Windows 95, 98 and NT4.0 on the installation CD) quite happily under Windows 7 on a 64 bit machine. It also ran under XP, and no doubt would run under the Virtual XP available in Windows 7 Professional (but not Home).

Hello John - This is kinda what I've been looking for for months - What version of Millenium Edition are you using because I thought for sure the OO would hold the answer. I have had Smartsuite CDs but none of my 2 run on 64 bit Windows 7 - Please if possible let me know if it's Millenium Ed 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.7, 9.8, 9.8.1, 9.8.2 etc.

Strange eventually finding the answer to my Lotus APR file answer in with one for Word Pro.

This site http://www.s2services.com/lwp-viewers.htm has a link for the kvlot32.exe viewer, and the source company is evidently defunct. I got it years ago from a CD that came with a book on computing, which worked well for me.

Nope - same as the Lotus program I have tried - It says it is not compatible with the 64bit version - So No-one seems to have an answer, viewer or App that can run .apr etc files from Lotus ON 64BIT machines (Including Lotus) except for John Ha above whom we cannot reach. This leaves at least 5 years of Lotus Database unusable on the new machine/s!

Find a 32 bit machine and do the conversions on it. QED

Sounds like a plan Rory but what conversions do you suggest would be best - diff format for another program or ?

Probably best to convert to MS Office formats (.doc, .xls etc) as a transfer format to OpenOffice. Almost certainly there will be some reformatting required.

If you get access to a system on which you can do a transfer, do all the files. Don't postpone some of them. Do the transfer and finish with it.

Found an old lotus .lwp file. Cannot open in OO. Downloaded latest LibreOffice onto my 64 bit Win 7 laptop.. This reads the file perfectly and, of course, allows one to save in a less obsolete format.

twentyman wrote:Found an old lotus .lwp file. Cannot open in OO. Downloaded latest LibreOffice onto my 64 bit Win 7 laptop.. This reads the file perfectly and, of course, allows one to save in a less obsolete format.

This is AWESOME, twentyman! Thank you so much for your post. I have many LWP files (full of family history, etc.) on old 3.5" diskettes that I was able to transfer to my current hard drive in November but had no way to read them. I've been pondering and postponing the conversion of LWP files for 2 months because there didn't seem to be any straight forward way to do it successfully. You provided a great solution -- and your timing was PERFECT. I quickly downloaded LibreOffice today and it worked like a charm on my 64 bit machine. Formatting looks good, too. I don't have to do any of the copy/paste work-arounds that other forums recommended. Happy New Year!

Freshcafe wrote:What version of Millenium Edition are you using ... Please if possible let me know if it's Millenium Ed 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.7, 9.8, 9.8.1, 9.8.2 etc.

Freshcafe

Sorry but I didn't spot your question earlier

The yellow CD says Lotus SmartSuite Millenium Edition Part No 39L8191.
The booklet which came with the CD it says Lotus SmartSuite Millenium Edition 9.0 Release.
Both say "Only for supply with a NEW IBM PC" and in fact it came with an IBM PC which went to the tip years ago - it was 400 MHz at best. I run it happily on a 2 x 2.6GHz non-IBM PC now.

I have been a continuous user of Lotus WordPro since its very first release after AmiPro, and have in fact used every version of Lotus WordPro. To clear up some confusion, the file format for Lotus WordPro has not changed since the release of WordPro 95! I am able to open WordPro files saved in version 9.8.x under Windows XP (or 7) in Windows 95 (a virtual machine) running WordPro version 95 without issues.