Training Blog

I´ve been givne some financial planning spreadsheets that were originally written in Lotus 123 with a .123 file extension – so they´re old, very old! I´ve spent some hours trying to work out how to use them in Excel, as I don´t have the Lotus Software.
 
Now, you can get a converter for the .wk1/2/3/4 file extensions, the later version of Lotus 123 but Excel just doesn´t read the older ones. I was just about to give up hope when I hit on an idea which worked, you´ll be pleased to know if you have the same problem. I did visit a forum that advised getting a ´reader´ for Lotus which I tried. It did allow me to extract the data but it loses all the formulae – the whole point of the spreadsheets.

 
So, here´s what you do. You go to Corel and download a trial version of their office suite, containing Quattro Pro. Once downloaded (about 176mb so not too long on Broadband) you can open your files with Quattro Pro, which even lets you select a a Lotus 123 mode and then save them in whatever you wish, pretty well preserving all of the functions in the original sheets. Being a businessman, I wasn´t sure whether to share or sell the solution;-) I decided on ´share´ so that you´d think I was a complete humanitarian too!