Super confused as to the issue here.
From what I understand, you're running Office 2004 and would like to upgrade your computer and your OS.
Your worry is if your documents created in earlier versions of Office will work on the latest version?
Yes.
Safari will also update. PDFs will work the same.
I ask this in total seriousness: is this a legit question? Surely we all would have heard terrible horror stories have upgrading/updating been an issue.
Yes, my primary concerns center upon my need to transfer MS Office 2004 documents, PDFs, and Safari bookmarks. From what I have gathered here, I should be able to update MS Office 2004 to MS Office 2008 on both the PPC and Intel platforms. Since I have accumulated over 86K folders and 606K files using these applications over the years, I was concerned about "EveryMac" Com's notification regarding the Mac Pro "Six Core" 3.33 (2010/Westmere) Specs, which state:
"This system fully supports the current version of OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion," with the exception of the "AirPlay Mirroring" feature. Please note that OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion are not capable of running Mac OS X apps originally written for the PowerPC processor as neither supports the "Rosetta" environment."
My experience with the "Classic" emulation between the OS 9 and OS X environment was one of extension conflicts, so I never used "Classic."
The problem was that we had invested $1000 for a wide format printer and $100s more in other peripherals that would only work properly with OS 9, a few months before "Jaguar" came out.
"Jaguar" came across as something that Apple had designed by taking elements of OS 9 and OS X and throwing them against a wall to see how many things would stick together.
Since we couldn't get a "Gimp Print" server to run the printer properly, I developed things in OS X up to the point where "Tiger" started to get "buggy" and used a partition with OS 9 to print things out.
Someplace along the way Adobe and Microsoft completely stopped supporting OS 9 Apps. Fortunately, I back things up in multiple partitions, because I encountered a situation where a slew of PDF documents, on an OS 9 drive partition, turned into "hollow shells" with "zero content" when I tried to launch the Adobe Reader one day.
"P-o-o-o-o-o-f-f-f!"
The message was: "Get another computer" and pray that everything you have stored in the back-up partition can be dragged and dropped onto a new OS X drive, because you only get one more "Mouse Click" to test the theory.
The choices were a "Quad Core" 2.5 GHz liquid cooled model that leaked and was obviously not ready for "prime time" or the "Dual Core" 2.0 GHz air cooled model, which Apple was about to consign to the "bone pile" with its segue into the "Intel" platform. Of course, that was implemented around yet another emulation scheme called "Rosetta."
Now, I get the part about the "march of civilization" and "progress." Undoubtedly, there was some guy that made the "best damn buggy whips" on planet earth about the time the Model-T started rolling off of assembly lines.
What I don't get is how a couple of "Frat Boys" like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates could dominate the computer industry for decades on end, without facing any form of "regulatory standards" to preclude them from methodologically disabling equipment, because software manufacturers have had to repeatedly adapt to architectural modifications. Apple has changed its architectural standards three times, with the effect of making computers they manufactured function like the staircases in Mrs. Winchester's mansion, in a matter of months after they were produced.
Obviously, there has to be profit incentives to motivate changes in industry, because it takes money to retool them. But what is sorely lacking in the computer industry are any form of regulatory provisions to protect consumers from having to completely replace equipment and software that manufacturers can systematically render obsolete as they see fit.
That's a system that invites abuse.
My Dad doesn't need a keyboard to tune his Buick, because there was a law that required automobile makers to produce replacement parts for 10-years after it was manufactured, and enough Buicks survived to make a market for third party vendors to produce replacement parts afterwards.
Maybe there should be a similar law to govern computer and software industries, in order to preclude their insatiable lusts for profit from governing all of us.
I can't even begin to understand the technicalities of how computers function, and I stand in awe of a great many members of this site who I regard as the best judges of whether or not there is any merit to the comments I have made above. Perhaps there are perfectly sound reasons for all of these architectural changes. If there are not, then you are the only people who possess the technical insight necessary to question these industries, which for better or worse, exert tremendous influences upon our society.
Maybe there should be a forum dedicated to examining the standards by which these industries wield that influence, and that might well extend to the manner in which government utilizes them, because I have read the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights from cover to cover, and I don't see anything in there that entitles either of these entities to construct a complex in Buffdale, Utah for the purpose of tracking every keystroke we make.
Finally, I thoroughly agree with the views that people have made regarding the substandard capabilities of Microsoft's Office Software. I always questioned my Dad's decision to put this software on our computers, given the rivalry that has existed between Apple and Microsoft.
What I would be interested in knowing at this point is what you guys regard as the best word processing office software on the market today, and I thank you all very much for the benefit of your knowledge.
