Update clarisworks, please!

Question

I am a graphic artist, disabled with ataxia now and depending on Clarisworks to replace my pen-on-paper work. It is the artist's delight - AND NO OTHER RECOMMENDED APP CAN TOUCH IT. Apple appears to have abandoned it, leaving it to go very flaky. Click on 'sise' when using Text in 'Draw' and watch total inaction until you go away and come back. Watch your big, intricae and time-consuming file, almost finished, crash. Withi unsaved material.
TRY DOING STUFF LIKE THIS WITH SOME BIG-NAME APPS!

Answer 1

Paul:
Have you read Roger Wilmut's excellent article, Abandoning Appleworks?
http://www.wilmut.webspace.virginmedia.com/notes/aw/page1.html
It is not clear to me how much his article will cover your Clarisworks situation.
Hopefully one of these alternative applications posted on this thread will work for you. Otherwise...
From Wikipedia:
ClarisWorks 1.0 shipped for the Macintosh in 1991 and was subsequently ported to the Windows platform, shipping as ClarisWorks 1.0 for Windows in 1993.[citation needed] When the Claris company was disbanded and absorbed back into Apple, the product was renamed AppleWorks;[7] in fact, version 5 was released shortly before the product's return to Apple and was briefly called ClarisWorks 5.
So then it would appear that Clarisworks is a legacy Classic app and not a PowerPC app; hence Rosetta is not involved here.
It appears that it will not run on your Intel iMac with Snow Leopard (10.6.8) installed, so how are you accessing Clarisworks now?  What version is it?
Legacy Classic apps can run on Intel Macs using the SheepShaver emulator (or its cousin, Chubby Bunny).  Other than purchasing a used legacy Mac (and hoping it continues to work), this may be your only hope to continue with Clarisworks. 
Here is a recent post I assembled for a similar question about running a Classic app:
With the newer Intel Macs, you have to run a Classic emulator such as SheepShaver, which requires you to extract the Mac ROMs from your older Classic Mac and then install Mac OS 9.
A related program is Chubby Bunny, which comes bundled with all of that included (google the term "Classic-On-Intel v 4.0.1 chubby bunny").
More information on SheepShaver:
http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver_mac_os_x_setup
and
http://www.everymac.com/mac-answers/mac-os-9-classic-support-faq/run-macos-9-on- intel-macs.html
and more information about Chubby Bunny:
http://www.macwindows.com/OS9_on_Intel_Mac.html#092408b
and
http://hackthemac.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/chubby-bunny-old-virtual-machine.html
Here is the Classic CD-ROM version of RISK II running in SheepShaver on my Lion Mac Mini:
                              [click on image to enlarge]