PowerPC Word files on OS X (how to read?)

I just upgraded to Lion. Now I get the message that it no longer supports PowerPC Word files. So, I can't read my Word files. Some of them are important. Is there a program or something I can use to extract them in a readable format on Lion? Thanks for any info.

PowerPC Word files??? Which version of MS Office were the files created with? You certainly can't install an older copy of Word in Lion because of the PPC code, but the documents should not matter. Word X and Word 2004 will not run in Lion but I would think the documents *.doc files should be OK.

He's probably got word 2004 installed and cannot run Word after an upgrade

You can still open word files using text edit, but a better more word like option would be Libre Office a free office suit that can open and edit Office docs

LibreOffice Productivity Suite Download » LibreOffice

He's probably got word 2004 installed and cannot run Word after an upgrade

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Yeah, I thought that could be the reason but it was the way he worded his question.

I often have to interpret the difference between what my bosses say and what they actually mean, I'm used to it by now

If you do have an older version of Office (pre-2008) and don't want to purchase a newer version, you can always try LibreOffice. It's free and compatible with Word documents (you might notice small issues though so take a look).

Reading older Word files

Thanks for the replies. While fooling around I right clicked and got a window giving me the option to open the files with pages. So, I bought the Pages app. Now I can open and read the files without any further trouble. My computer must be thinking I'm a real dummy. There are times I would agree.

Fuzzyvet said:

Thanks for the replies. While fooling around I right clicked and got a window giving me the option to open the files with pages. So, I bought the Pages app. Now I can open and read the files without any further trouble. My computer must be thinking I'm a real dummy. There are times I would agree.

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I think we all feel that way sometimes.

About ourselves I mean . . .

Glad you found Pages, which I think is an awesome program, but TextEdit (included on your computer) would have been able to open the files as well (might not have preserved formatting as well as Pages does, however).