Apple

On Jan 3, 2014, at 4:29 PM, Gil Dawson wrote:

Using Microsoft Word:Mac 2008 Version 12.3.6,

I just noticed that Word will no longer open my (hundreds of) old Word documents just by double-clicking their icons in the Finder.

Instead, Word puts up an alert:

<FileName> uses a file type that is blocked
from opening In this version.
To help secure your computer, some file types are
blocked Irom opening when you double-click the file or
drag the file to the Microsoft Word Icon. If you trust that
this file Is secure, you can open the file by clicking Open
on the File menu.

Learn more about blocked file types

Clicking on the "learn more" leads to a web page with the same workaround, but no solutions. If you pull down from File to Open..., the file can be opened.

I have learned that the kind of InfoForThisFile is "Microsoft Word 1.x-5.x document". This makes them easy to search for.

I thought I'd write an AppleScript to "upgrade" all my archived files. I ran into trouble with this simple script:

set aFile to POSIX file "<path to an archived Microsoft Word 1.x-5.x document>"
tell application "Microsoft Word" to open aFile

Instead of opening the file, Word puts up the same alert.

Can you figure out how to get AppleScript to tell Word how to open one of these files?

Has anyone done this?

In Word's dictionary, take a look at "file converter", which is an element of the application. I believe this will convert and open a specified format into a different, specified format. You should be able to set up a new file converter with parameters you need. Sorry, but I've not done this myself, so don't have sample code to share. I can't guarantee that the same alert won't pop up, but it's might be worth a look.

References:
	>tell Word to open an old file (From: Gil Dawson <email@hidden>)