Can anyone convert a WordPerfect file to PDF for me?

[cthorpe]

I am in charge of posting weekly church documents on our website.

I fell a little behind this week and am only just now getting to the documents that need to be up by tomorrow.

Our secretary refuses to use anything other than WordPerfect.  Usually she sends both the WordPerfect file and a pdf that she has generated.  This week, she left off the pdf file.

I have tried doing the conversion through Google Docs, MS Word 2010, Libre Office, and an online service and all either mangled the layout or refused to even try to open the file.  Word and the online service say the file is corrupt, however they say the same thing on other WordPerfect documents I have received from the secretary as well.

Can anyone help me out?

I have attached a zip file with both the wpd file (Easter 2 - April 27 2014.wpd) and a pdf from a past week (March-09-2014-Lent1.pdf).

The reason for the past week is so that you can see that things always look a little odd with part of the decorative font on the front page and large blank spots throughout the file (supposedly due to copyright concerns).  In theory, it should be easy to get a PDF that looks somewhat like the March-09-2014-Lent1.pdf file from the wpd file.

I would just put up the slightly mangled version Google Docs can give me, but I just know someone will get upset about it (you know how us church people can be  )

Thanks!

Carl

[x16wda]

Does this look like what you have in mind?

The gaps are a little disconcerting... I'm not sure how the copyright concerns fit in...

BTW, Word 2013 barfs on the whole thing, just shows part of the church info block at the top left, then nothing. One more reason to dislike O2103. 

[cthorpe]

That's as close to perfect as we ever get.  Thank you!  Some credits are heading your way.

As for copyright, my understanding is that the church has permission to print a specified number of copies of a document that has copyrighted hymns that are duplicated from the hymnals.  This allows us to own less physical hymnals than we would otherwise need.  Those printouts are available at the entrances of the church on Sunday morning.  The copyright agreement specifically prohibits distributing that copyrighted material outside of the church or providing a digital copy as it might be printed more than the allowed number of times.

Carl

[Innuendo]

cthorpe,

I'm the curious sort so I downloaded the original thinking I might be able to do a better job for you as it looked like something was getting jacked up in the conversion process, but you know what? It's not!

I loaded up the original document in Corel WordPerfect X6 and it looked *exactly* like x16wda's PDF...awkward gaps, words/paragraphs running across page breaks, and all. If she wants to insist on using WordPerfect, that's fine, but I think it's time someone insist she learn how to use it properly.

Words cannot describe how shocked I was when I laid eyes on the original document. The lack of....competence...it reflects badly upon her, you, and your fine organization.

Sorry, Carl. 

[cyberdiva]

I too was curious and downloaded the WordPerfect file.  I don't have WordPerfect on my current computer, but TextMaker 2012 (which I use instead of Word) normally is able to open and deal with WordPerfect files.  I would then have brought the file into a pdf program to see what I could do with it.  To my surprise, TextMaker choked on this .wpd file.  I tried several times, but I was unable to get TextMaker to open it. 

[MilesAhead]

Yeah. I took a look at the PDF as I don't have any Word tools.  The lady should take a crash class in Page Break.  At least do a Print Preview and see where to insert Page Breaks.

That's the easiest way to improve the look of output without really having to study the word processor.  My favorite is a stack of document and the last page just has " - NN - " (page number) on a line at the top.  Makes it seem as if nobody read the thing before deciding to publish it  

[Innuendo]

Miles, either that or she keeps a bottle of something in her desk.

[MilesAhead]

Miles, either that or she keeps a bottle of something in her desk.

-Innuendo (April 27, 2014, 07:08 PM)

Heh heh.  So you are saying not enough page breaks and too many booze breaks? 

If I wrote a word processor it wouldn't be named Word Perfect.  It would likely be named Words not too bad considering who wrote the thing.

[cthorpe]

Yes, I know the formatting is terrible for the PDF.  We have tried to help her in various ways, but it has all be for naught.  She's been the secretary for quite some time and is set in her ways. 

Keep in mind that the printed version of the document does not have the massive blank areas, as they are filled with excerpts of hymns.  It looks acceptable in the printed format.

Miles, either that or she keeps a bottle of something in her desk.

-Innuendo (April 27, 2014, 07:08 PM)

Heh heh.  So you are saying not enough page breaks and too many booze breaks? 

If I wrote a word processor it wouldn't be named Word Perfect.  It would likely be named Words not too bad considering who wrote the thing.

-MilesAhead (April 28, 2014, 09:33 AM)

That's not nice


Carl

[MilesAhead]

@Carl when it says "Word not so bad considering who wrote the thing" I meant that I wrote the word processing program.  So no way it would be perfect. 

[cthorpe]

@Carl when it says "Word not so bad considering who wrote the thing" I meant that I wrote the word processing program.  So no way it would be perfect. 

-MilesAhead (April 28, 2014, 02:08 PM)

I was referring to the drinking thing.    No worries.

[Innuendo]

Keep in mind that the printed version of the document does not have the massive blank areas, as they are filled with excerpts of hymns.  It looks acceptable in the printed format.

-cthorpe

If it looks fine printed out then it might simply be a version problem. She may be using a version of WordPerfect so old that PDF generators and other programs, including newer versions of WordPerfect, won't format the documents correctly.

[Curt]

Hello from Zamzar !
There was a problem converting your file - We attempted to perform the conversion you requested from wpd to pdf but unfortunately the conversion failed.
http://www.zamzar.co.../convert/wpd-to-pdf/

-File upload complete

-so I went and installed Free Viewer; it is surprisingly good at reading wpd files. It read your original wpd file without major problems; it was very much like your uploaded pdf file, but Free Viewer can only save as Doc or RTF, not from WPD to PDF, sorry.

I have maybe 3000 fonts, so I was embarrassed to see that your uploaded wpd file's fonts are not being displayed properly (but your pdf file did not provoke such errors):



Free Viewer "Save as RTF":

RTF; Easter 2 April 27 2014.zip (9.66 kB - downloaded 239 times.)

--------------------

This is a screenshot of how Free Viewer is displaying your uploaded wpd file, page 1:
click thumbnail to enlarge:

Can anyone convert a WordPerfect file to PDF for me?


---
But apart from converting via RTF, I am unable to convert your uploaded file into PDF.

[pinewater]

get a print pdf driver such as bullzip pdf printer and she can give you both wordperfect file and pdf output