Filed under: Software
Appleworks dies. Long live iWork
ComputerWorld UK reports that AppleWorks has been retired by Apple after 23 years. AppleWorks, aka ClarisWorks né StyleWare provided a complete, low-cost office suite for Macintosh computers all the way into the PowerPC era. I wrote my dissertation in the program and until a couple of years ago I still used it to create our family holiday cards. I was surprised by the news as I had assumed the program had been put to rest years ago, buried along-side Hypercard. Instead, it took the release of Apple Numbers to finally kill the old workhorse. iWork '08 imports AppleWorks documents including spreadsheets, presentations and word processing files.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nick said 2:13PM on 8-16-2007
I was in the Apple Store in Menlo Park Mall, NJ, today, and they had 3 boxed copies on the software wall.
I used the original AppleWorks in grammar school to create a baseball card database, and AppleWorks GS in high school to write papers. I had AppleWorks for Mac in college, but always opted for MacWrite II (not Pro!) and MS Excel for my assignments.
(and yes, I know the three are unrelated code-wise)
Sad to see the old standbys of yesterday pass along. Makes me want to bust out my KEGS emulator and play some Gnarly Golf!
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Johnny Thrash said 2:30PM on 8-16-2007
Numbers is sweet.
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Paul said 2:56PM on 8-16-2007
If I'm not mistaken I bought the original AppleWorks and used it on my Apple //e... great program. It was all text based and worked very well.
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dale said 2:57PM on 8-16-2007
The inclusion of Numbers in iWork was the final nail in the coffin for Appleworks and Microsoft Office for myself and my wife. The family pack version of iWork is 1/3 of the price of a single standard MS Office 2004 license, and the main document and spreadsheet apps support more formats.
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Angela said 3:23PM on 8-16-2007
Unfortunately iWorks doesn't have the plethora of user-created templates which Appleworks has had over the years. I am going to miss that part, for certain.
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Daniel said 3:27PM on 8-16-2007
Is there a program that will import AppleWorks database files?
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Adam said 3:34PM on 8-16-2007
Actually i was just working on a project last night going from Appleworks 5 to Appleworks 6. and to my surprise, iWork '08 will not read old Appleworks files.
unless i was doing something wrong. apple has dropped all support for Appleworks
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rp said 4:10PM on 8-16-2007
I used Appleworks throughout college (2002-2006). Great program. I took a class where we had to basically create presentations using graphs and what not in Excel. The book used Excel, the teacher taught us in Excel, and of course the word processing program was Word. I asked her if she wouldn't mind that mine might look a little different because I refused to use Microsoft products on my Mac. She reluctantly agreed, but said that I probably wouldn't be able to do most of the assignments. Well, I proved her wrong. The only thing I couldn't figure out how to do with Appleworks was a Gantt chart, so I drew it by hand. She was pretty impressed at my tenacity, and she admitted that my presentations often looked better than the Excel created stuff by other students. I was proud, and still am proud of Appleworks for what it can/could do. I used Pages a while ago and found it to suck complete ass. Hopefully, the new iWork is a lot better. Otherwise, I'll just have to stay with Appleworks thanks.
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The Grand Master said 4:42PM on 8-16-2007
I loved Appleworks. I remember being really really impressed with it when I first got my iMac G5. It was a really well rounded and intelligent program that I used almost exclusively instead of Word for my schoolwork until recently.
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Scott Millen said 5:04PM on 8-16-2007
Alas, there is no replacement for AppleWorks' database program, which is easy to set up and use, and darn cheap. Even if iWorks is lovely to look at, Pages is confusing. Keynote is a joy (although backing up in a presentation proves challenging at times depending on your fx), and I try to avoid spreadsheets at all costs. Very much miss a robust and fast Appleworks...
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Brian said 5:04PM on 8-16-2007
I use a draw file to design my business cards and my address labels, and I can print several on a page! Will iWork still let me do this?
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derekhardwick said 5:36PM on 8-16-2007
poor clarus the dogcow :(
moof.
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Bill Riski said 8:27PM on 8-16-2007
I bought my first Apple computer in 1979 (yeah, I'm an 'old man') - serial number 3000. Still have the original red users manual, though the machine is long gone. So you know what's coming next -- I too felt just a twang of sorrow in hearing of Appleworks passing. (Don't tell my wife. She thinks I'm enough of a geek already.)
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dbeth said 11:05AM on 8-17-2007
When will Pages ever allow the entering of equations into documents?!? I teach HS math and need to enter equations for worksheets and tests and Appleworks and Word work fine for this....NeoOffice just doesn't work nearly as nice. I haven't found a THING for Pages.
'til then.....still need to use Office sadly.
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Graham de Freitas said 11:19PM on 8-16-2007
I also used AW for my dissertation - actually it was Clarisworks 5. Such a clean SMALL program - a real beauty. (iWorks takes nearly 2 Gigs of RAM! - that is without Numbers) The dissertation had Sanskrit fonts and transliterions plus charts, tables, graphics and lots of footnotes.
I really don't think that adding Numbers completes the picture. AW had Paint and a simple database ( which could have been much better with a little formula help in matches). I don't see a paint option in iWorks - or have I missed something?
I love the simple Draw unit in AW. Has anyone found a program that will import AW Draw documents?
Sad to hear that the new version of iW doesn't import AW at all.
Actually I became disillusioned already with AW 6 when it had no publish/subscribe function, which I used to make collections of my poetry, and did not support all my macros.
But this is not good news for those who fondly remember the days when Claris had not only the best integrated office suite in Clarisworks, but also the best email client in Claris eMailer (later Outlook) and the best PIM in Claris Organizer (later Palm Desktop). And the all ran in less than 1 M as I recall.
Appleworks User Groups www.awug.com will have strategies for all the conversions we'll have to make. Too bad about those templates...
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Dan said 2:54AM on 8-17-2007
iWork still lacks something that MS office still does not have. A database. I use appleworks for the database program.
Sure there is Filemaker but that costs $1000.00.
Whatever Apple comes up with to replace the database feature in appleworks. They need to add that ability to import and export MS access files. Filemaker can't do it, Appleworks can't do it, Open Office can't do it, MS office for mac can't do it (No data base at all.
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Chris D. said 8:31AM on 8-17-2007
just love appleworks and am devastated it is being dumped. the only module I don't use is presentation. I bought a copy of iwork and found Pages to be absolute rubbish - a load of hyped templates that did not permit any creativity. it imports only word processing documents and those very badly as it screws up everything. It is unlike apple software being clunky and ugly. The drawing and word processing modules in appleworks allow you to do anything and you are only limited by your imagination. I bought Intaglio but it is a poor substitute for the Drawing Module. The only piece of software that remotely comes near the useability and creativity of Apple Works is Rag Time and that really costs but I may have to save up for it.
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Dan in DC/VA said 9:02AM on 8-17-2007
I used Claris Works for years on my MacIIci in high school. What a great app.
It's cool that it stood the test of time living in the Appleworks witness protection program.
Now I spend 90% of my current computing life in Windows in MS Office (at work), which could learn a few things from Claris Works (like how its not polite to constantly try to reformat a user's document! That's right, I'm looking at you MS Word!)
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MCO said 9:04PM on 8-17-2007
The AW Database is the most important part of the suite for me which I still use daily.
Anyone know what happens if you try to open a database .CWK file in iWork?
What's the alternative? FileMaker is complete overkill.
--mco
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R Meyer said 1:07PM on 10-27-2007
iWork simply tells you that your AppleWorks database can't be opened. Period. Also, if your previously created spreadsheet is very large, iWorks will also tell you it can't be opened.
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