Last year, I purchased a Mac laptop. The thought of using Pages, which came with my new Mac, never occurred to me.
I had been using Microsoft Word since a CD-ROM was inserted into the desktop, and then manually installed as a standalone product. Then, when I bought my laptop, I purchased the latest version of Microsoft 365, downloaded from the internet using a product key.
There is always the fear of losing work; having an external drive as a backup is a good precaution. So I thought.
After a year of using Microsoft Word, I was confronted with a co-pilot icon and could not figure out how to delete it. Every time I did anything, flashes of a free trial became persistent, causing significant irritation on my part. I caved in and agreed to a free trial, only then could I turn off Co-Pilot.
Once the free trial was over, I canceled Co-Pilot. After a month, things returned to normal, and then problems began. I researched the ability to use Microsoft Word without Co-Pilot, which came with mixed reviews. I felt a kindred spirit to all the strangers out there who were having the same issues. We all wanted a basic offline writing program, which is not so easy to find or do.
This past week, I discovered that my Microsoft Word download on the laptop was no longer accessible. It also meant that my new manuscript on the external hard drive could not be accessed!
I spent hours in the queue and engaging in chat with the experts. They were just as confused as I was. They did, however, have some suggestions: uninstall, reinstall, update the computer, and create another account, which I did, and nothing worked. The final result in our chats was that, since I purchased it through Apple, there was nothing they could do on their end.
I opened the folder containing my manuscript, “Sit and Wait,” stored on the external hard drive. When I clicked on each chapter, it was read-only, but at least it was there. The next step was to determine how to convert my work from a read-only format to a usable format in a different program.
All the while, the small orange icon for Pages remained on my taskbar, waiting for me to click on it. It was scary, but I had to be brave. When I opened Pages, I was surprised to discover thirty chapters, each labeled with the blue W. I can not explain how my documents converted automatically, but it was a user-friendly benefit.
The manuscript pages were still read-only, but in the sidebar, there was an orange button with the word “update”. I clicked it, and in doing so, it seamlessly integrated the old Word version into Pages, an Apple program. I went down the column updating each chapter. In the folder, there were now two versions of each; the blue W’s went in the trash.
During this process, I stumbled upon further information on Microsoft Word for the Web, an offline program, and yes, it is a free version; chat support never suggested that option. Now, I have committed to Pages, and I am thankful I can start editing again!
Have you ever had the uncomfortable experience of switching software programs? How did you solve the issues?
