Have old Microsoft Word or AppleWorks spreadsheet, word processing, presentation, or draw documents that won't open under Lion? Ted Landau offers some advice.

Free Web service Zamzar can turn Publisher files into Word documents, PDFs, HTML pages, and loads of other formats.

Ankush khandelwal asked about compatibility issues between files created in different versions of Microsoft Office--specifically the big changes in file format that came with Office 2007.

Under the worst circumstances — the company goes under, say, or you can’t find a way to open old files — you may never your data again. These problems arise from any number of circumstances: ...

Another alternative is to use Apache’s Open-Office, a free suite of office software. Using OpenOffice’s Calc, a spreadsheet program, it opened an old Lotus .wk1 file easily.

If you open an old Pages document in the new version of Pages, you can't open it again in the old one. And you can't send the file as an email attachment. Here are some suggested work-arounds.

Want to open old PowerPoint presentations in Protected View? Enable this setting in PowerPoint Options, Group Policy, and Registry.

You can make Excel always open old spreadsheets in Protected View. Enable or disable Protected View using in-built setting, Group Policy, Registry.

Office files will open up in a new browser tab with the version list next to them. When it comes to other types of files, you’ll see a list of old versions of those on the right.

So we got these files in on a CD. They're supposed to be done in MacDraw II, but that just won't open them. No problem...right? Just convert them into something so that Illustrator can see them ...