Easily opening .Doc files

Question

I use AppleWorks 6.2.4 for virtually all word processing/spreadsheet needs on my iBook. However, my only complaint is how painful it is to open .doc files. At first, if I had a .doc file visible in my Finder, it has a logo of a white sheet of paper. If I double-clicked on it, Finder would tell me that it couldn't find an application to open the file, and would not give me the option to choose.
The only way I found to open them is to
1. Launch AppleWorks.
2. Click File > Open.
3. In the File Format drop-down menu, scroll ALL THE WAY down to "Word Win 97, 2000 [MacLink AW]"
4. Navigate to and select the .doc file...... at which point the MacLink Plus conversion progress meter appears, and viola. open.
This is all fine and dandy, but I thought "this has to be easier. Why can't I just double-click on the dang file in the Finder?"
So, I found a control panel called File Exchange that looked promising. Under the PC Exchange tab, I looked for the PC Extension called "doc." The application selected for it was "AppleWorks," but the logo was a picture of a hand on a piece of paper. So, I highlighted it, and chose "change." In the next window, I selected AppleWorks 6 (with the actual logo next to it." I then clicked "OK."
Now, each time I open a .doc file by double-clicking on it in the finder, it opens an AppleWorks speadsheet, with some jibberish in the first cell -- that's it.
The old method of opening it is still successful -- I've finaggled with the File Exchange control panel, on virtually every setting I could come up with, and nothing seems to work.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hi, sopranojam85 -
In the File Exchange control panel, the PC Exchange tab info governs what happens to a file that is imported to the machine, i.e., one that is either downloaded or is copied from another (usually temporary) volume. The info on the File Translation tab is used when handling files already on the drive. When a file does not have a Creator code that matches a program available to the OS, it looks in File Translation for a match, and uses that if so instructed by you - you can set File Translation to not display a choice if there is only one possibility.
The term "Word Win 97, 2000 MacLink AW" indicates you have the version of MacLink that came bundled with AppleWorks.
I'm running the same version of AppleWorks as you are, however I have added the commercial version, MacLinkPlus Deluxe, which provides a broader range of file translation capability with AppleWorks. It still won't provide a direct double-click-and-open function, because I have more than one choice (AW 5 as well as AW 6), but when I do double-click a .doc file the File Translation intercept window opens and offers me the choice of AppleWorks 6 with MLP translation.
Using the Open menu item within AppleWorks 6, if I let the Format pulldown menu stay at "AppleWorks", a .doc file will not be displayed in the scrolling list; but if I change the Format pulldown to "All Available", it does display .doc file types - this is a lot faster than scrolling down a long ways.
The method I actually use for most non-AW file types is to keep an alias to AW6 on the desktop, then drop the non-AW6 file onto the alias - this works pretty much the same as the result of using an Open command within the application, and works even if AW6 has not yet been started up.
Note - sometimes an alias to AppleWorks 6 won't work quite right. This is a result of the AW6 program (the one you see) actually being an "application program package", or Package, which is indicated by the ".app" suffix on the AW6 name ("AppleWorks 6.app").
A Package is a specialized folder - it looks like a program, and acts like one when you double-click on it; but it's actaully a folder. Typically, in that folder are more than one version of the program (for example - one for OS 9, and one for OSX), plus additional support files.
Although Finder understands packages, sometimes it screws up - especially when dropping a file onto an alias to the package. What happens then is that Finder, for some reason, treats it as a folder alias, and dutifully deposits the dropped file into the folder - into the package itself.
Such files are recoverable - quite easily, too. To open the package, with the program not running and Contextual Menus active, Control-click on the package (the program itself, not the alias) - one of the items that will appear in the contextual menu that opens is Show Package Contents. Select it, and the package will turn into a folder, which opens automatically. Retrieve your "lost" files - just drag them out onto the desktop.
While you're there, locate the OS 9 version of the program (in AW6 it is in a sub-folder in Contents named MacOS Classic), and make a new alias of it. Then replace the alias you've been using (which is actually an alias to the package, and not to the program) with the new one. Doing so should prevent a recurrence of the problem.
Once you've done what you need to, close the .app folder - its icon should have a small image of a brown parcel (a "package") superimposed on it. Control-click on that folder and select "Hide Package Contents" from the contextual menu.