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I understand that with Catalina I will no linger be able to access documents I have previously stored as Word documents unless they have been created under the most recent version of Word. True?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.14
Two suggestions:
Neither one of those suggestions involves spending a cent, assuming you are already in the habit of backing up your Mac. And if you don't back up your Mac, then you don't care about its contents anyway, and your concern is rendered moot.
The Apple advisors you spoke to were either wrong or misinterpreted your question.
Pages does not open Word documents natively as would Word itself. It makes a WAG attempt at translating the Word document into Pages internal document format, without changing the original Word document, or allowing any subsequent editing of it. Apple does not guarantee translation quality on opening a Word document, nor on exporting to Word documents from Pages content.
Yes, I get all those caveats. But the fact is Mojave makes the WAG conversion of the exist Word documents. Catalina apparently will only do it with respect to newer Word docs (64 bit?) and will not do it fir previous Word versions (32 bit?). Thus, if I have 32bit Word docs Catalina will not even make a WAG effort to open/convert. I need to buy an updated Word program. That seems to be the consensus after cutting through the chaff.
Nope. Wrong consensus assumption.
The 32-bit/64-bit issue applies only to the applications, not to the documents. The newer 64-bit Office applications on Catalina will open your existing Microsoft documents without an issue. The operating system, regardless of version, has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft document conversion, and no document conversion is required by any other means — unless you use Pages.
Thank you. That is the first cogent explanation I have received with one minor hedge - the last phrase- “unless you use Pages”. I don’t understand that. Let me bore you with details.
My MacBook is currently running Mojave OS. When I prepare a new document on my MacBook Air I prepare it using Pages or Numbers as the case may be. When I am finished, I export the document to Word or Excel and that is what I retain (on my external drive or on my Mac). I do NOT save a Pages or Numbers version. Subsequently, if I want to edit the document, I open it on my Mac, edit it and again export it to Word or Excel and retain it but do not retain a Pages or Numbers document. Good practice; bad practice? I don't know but that’s what I have done for years.
Thus, I have a whole library of Word and Excel documents to which I need continued access. I have spoken to three different Apple Cares advisers in recent months about this issue. Two of them have said exactly the same thing: If I convert from Mohave to Catalina I will no longer be able to open those “older” documents UNLESS I also update (i.e., buy) to new Word and Excel programs. They attributed their answer to the 32/64 bit issue stating that Catalina would not open older/32 bit documents and, therefore, new 64 bit Word and Excel programs were needed to update the older/32 bit documents to 64 bits so that Catalina could open them. (The third Apple Care rep said: “Maybe, maybe not; could be; not sure; and don’t have any real idea” all in the same conversation.)
If I understand your response, you believe I can update to Catalina and I will have the same ready access to all of my current 32 bit Word and Excel docs without having to acquire updated Word or Excel software.
Do I understand correctly?
Many thanks for your patience and help.
Documents are never 32bit or 64bit, it is just the apps.
Why don't you download and install Catalina onto an external drive
and try it out and see for yourself, then you can make a more informed
decision to upgrade or not.
I thought I had covered this, but your documents do not care whether you are on a 32/64-bit or pure 64-bit operating system. Only your Office 2011 Microsoft applications are barred from working on Catalina because they are the older 32-bit apps. Once you have upgraded to a 64-bit application on Catalina, whether it is from Microsoft 365, Office 2019 for Mac, LibreOffice, or another third-party application that can open Word documents — the documents will open as before.
My slant on Pages is that it is not a Word clone, and there is some internal application interpretation to how faithful it remains to the original, or exported Word content. Because Pages has been a 64-bit application since Fall 2013, it simply does not care what, or where your Word documents were created, or whether you are on Mojave or Catalina.
Although Catalina supports only 64-bit applications, thus requiring your upgrade from the 32-bit Office 2011 for Mac, your Office 2011 (or older) documents are under no such limitation.
Pages opens Microsoft Word formatted documents natively.
One can also use the free alternative LibreOffice to open, edit and save MS Office documents to either MS Office formats or LibreOffice's own format.
Totally untrue.
What might happen is that if you have an ancient version of Word you might need to update it to run on Catalina. Or use one of the many alternatives.
I understand that with Catalina I will no longer be able to access documents stored as Word documents under prior versions of Word as I can woith Mojave. True?
