One of my students submitted an end-of-semester paper as a .wps document, and i’m buggered if i can get it to open without a whole bunch of square boxes and other gibberish.
I have Word XP, and have downloaded a couple of different Works conversion tools from the Microsoft website, but when i open the .wps document i still get a whole bunch of extraneous crap, and the document has no discernible formatting. And while i can see most of the text, some is clearly missing.
Why MS made their budget and high-end word processors so incompatible is just another in a long line of ridiculous and inexplicable Microsoft decisions (and is probably a subject suitable only for the Pit), but right now i’d really like to be able to open and read this paper. If anyone has any suggestions, i’d love to hear them.
And yes, i know i should probably just tell the student to put the paper in a format i can open (i do, after all, have Word, WordPerfect, and OpenOffice on this computer, so he has plenty of options), but i’d like to solve this problem for my own satisfaction.
Despite my skepticism, that worked great! For some reason, the conversion process could not deal with apostrophes or quotation marks (it gave little boxes instead), but at least now i can read the paper.
Thanks a heap. That site is now in my bookmarks.
Hyper Aware, thanks for the suggestion. unfortunately, i had already installed that converter, with no luck. It allowed me to open the file, but there was still loads of weird code and gibberish, and it was impossible to read the essay.
Yeah, that was going to be my next step. The student has been something of a pain in the ass all semester, and this was just another annoyance piled upon all the others he has inflicted on me.
One of the main reasons i was so determined to fix it myself is that, while i’m not computer genius, i can usually solve low- to medium-level tech problems myself, or with the help of some informed internet searching. I didn’t want to be defeated by what seemed to be a fairly simple problem.
I’m always reluctant to insist that students use a program like Word. While i realize that Microsoft’s domination of the software market is something of a fait accompli, and i have Word on my own computer, i’m opposed in principle to insisting that my students use a Microsoft product to submit their work. I also don’t like asking students to spend more moeny than absolutely necessary, no matter whose product it is.
But nowadays, with the proliferation of free alternative word processing tools, from downloadable programs like OpenOffice and Abiword to online apps like Google docs, it is easy and free for them to submit their papers in a compatible format without spending a dime. I told them about these products in class, and put links to them on the class website, but some people don’t listen very well.
Why do they do that? We get always get at least one student for every two or so papers coming into the office at the last minute complaining about our libraries not accepting .wps format. Why do they think our computers will take them instead? :rolleyes:
I am well aware of that. I believe i even acknowledged that fact in the OP.
But you’ll note that this student used the program of his own volition; i was talking about the issue of requiring students to use a particular program. Quite a different thing. Also, Works is the crappy, budget program that often comes (or used to come) bundled with Windows installations, while Word is a more expensive product.
Agreed. But, if my experience is any indication, Word can read documents written with more recent versions of Works (i.e. XP) but not older versions. Which leads me to believe that the student is using a relatively old computer with relatively old software.
Just don’t get me started on Microsoft Excel’s inexplicable inability to read Microsoft Works spreadsheet files. :mad:
Or .rtf (Rich Text Format), which ought to be writable and readable by pretty much any word processor.