[Solved] Trouble opening MS Word 97-2003 .doc files in Libre

[BonL]

I have a new Windows 7 HP computer. I was using a Windows XP HP computer. My files were written on the older computer.

I downloaded Libre yesterday and am now trying to open up my previous files. These files are on my new computer as I transferred them there. When I click on a file that says it is a MS Word 97-2003 .doc file, a little screen comes up asking for ASCII Filter Options. I click on OK. Then the document opens but it is all computer jibberish, and a document that was one page long now is 30 pages long with just a few odd looking characters on each page. As I have a lot of these to go through this is not very handy.

Does anyone know of a solution to this problem I'm having?

I had MS Works on my old computer, and also Word Perfect 6.0. Somehow in the fray all my Word Perfect .wpd files got turned into the MS Word 97-2003 files along with the Works .wps files.

[squenson]

If your files were created with MS Works or Word Perfect, they are still in these formats and they have not been magically transformed into MS Word documents. LibreOffice is apparently not able to open them, so I suggest that you first convert your files in a format readable by LibreOffice, like MS-Word. Ask the vendors of MS Work or Word Perfect whether they have conversion tool to a more open format like Open Document Format.

[RoryOF]

A good online site for format interchange is http://www.zamzar.com. If you are considering converting files, best to convert to OpenOffice's native format (.odt for text); from OpenOffice one can afterwards save out to .doc if necessary, but it is best to work in the native format. Be aware that with any format conversion there may be some changes on complex formatting.

[BonL]

If your files were created with MS Works or Word Perfect, they are still in these formats and they have not been magically transformed into MS Word documents. LibreOffice is apparently not able to open them, so I suggest that you first convert your files in a format readable by LibreOffice, like MS-Word. Ask the vendors of MS Work or Word Perfect whether they have conversion tool to a more open format like Open Document Format.

Okay, I went back in and lookde around. If I click on a file that I did in Word Perfect and it has the extension .wpd it opens okay.
But, I had saved a lot of them in .doc format. Those will not open.

Under Libraries where my files are listed they are like this:
ANGER.DOC file type: Microsoft Word 97-2003 - this one will not open (but I made this in Word Perfect years ago.)??
BEEPINGL.WPD file type: Open Officeorg 1.1. test document - this one will open nicely. But, it says Open Office.org and I made it in Word Perfect. ??

Some of the files that I had saves in .wps Works open and some don't, but in Libraries and file type they all say: Microsoft Word 97-2003.??

[Villeroy]

If you made ANGER.DOC in Word Perfect years ago, then it is unlikely that it is a doc file just because someone added the .doc extension to the file name.
Windows is not able to detect the type of a file. Windows identifies any file as "MS Word 97-2003" if it has the (wrong) file name extension .doc

[BonL]

If you made ANGER.DOC in Word Perfect years ago, then it is unlikely that it is a doc file just because someone added the .doc extension to the file name.
Windows is not able to detect the type of a file. Windows identifies any file as "MS Word 97-2003" if it has the (wrong) file name extension .doc

Okay, if that is the case then how can I open this file? I have a lot of files I saved with a doc extension.

[Villeroy]

Try to rename one of these files back to .wpd and see if some wpd capable application (LibreOffice) accepts the renamed file.

[BonL]

Try to rename one of these files back to .wpd and see if some wpd capable application (LibreOffice) accepts the renamed file.

I tried that and it worked!! I renamed the file and it opened in Libre Office. Yeah!! Thanks so much!!! Now, I will have to rename 300+ files and then open them and resave them in .odt.