I’ve been going through my old document files that have been transferred from so many computer upgrades over the years. I have files saved from as early as 1999. The problem has been that they were in Corel Word Perfect format and I switched to Microsoft Word in 2004. I’ve never bothered to get them transferred over to Word format until now. I actually inspired myself to tackle this project when I set up my MKM (Memory Keeping Management) prompt last month. I set a goal for a special project of
“organizing all my existing word files and documents. I have a folder system that is somewhat organized, but the truth is I’m not always good about filing my word docs in those folders. Sometimes, I just put together a quick note to someone and save it in my general documents file. I have several years worth of documents backed up to external hard drives that were moved off of previous computers before I upgraded. Many of those documents haven’t been viewed in years. I even have files from more than 10 years ago when I used Word Perfect! The time has come to decide what needs to be kept and what can be deleted.”
Knowing that I needed to report back to all of you about this task has really helped me actually get moving on it. I knew I would find some old and forgotten files, but I had no idea that I would be unearthing treasures that were hidden deep within my external hard drive! It’s been a tedious process, but also nostalgic as I’ve taken trips through all sorts of memory lanes of the past. I have even found a lot of the content I had posted on my first website from the late 1990s! I’ll be sure to share some of it here very soon.
How have I been transferring these files? I downloaded a trial version of the Word Perfect and I’ve been opening all of my old files one by one and copying and pasting all the content into Word documents. I should have done this years ago! Pretty soon, all of my files will be in Word format.
Just a sidenote about Corel Word Perfect – I used that program for many years and it was my first introduction to word processing on a computer. I really resisted switching to Microsoft Word because I was very fluent in the Corel program and I knew how to use so many features. Even after using Word for 8 years, there are times that I still miss Word Perfect. But the truth is that the world I exist in, revolves around Microsoft products and Word is the industry standard that I need to use. It’s interesting that as I’ve opened up all of these old files, I’ve also had a flood of memories come back to me relating to using Word Perfect as well as the old computers that I used to work on.
Back to the buried treasures…Some of my favorite finds:
- All the journaling I did for a mini-album I made for my brother’s past girlfriend. I’ve been bummed that I gave her such a nice scrapbook album about him and then they broke up and she kept the album. Now I have all the wording that I can use on other scrapbook layouts about my brother.
- A family newsletter that included a picture of my husband doing the most awesome belly flop. I don’t have that photo in any of my current files because it is one that my mother-in-law took. Somehow, it was intact in that newsletter and I was able to import it into Photoshop.
- A list of things that my kids said in 2001.
- An article I wrote on my old website (that I had totally forgotten about) called “Scrapbooking with Your Computer” – written in 2001! It’s both awesome and hilarious at the same time! I guess I was already on my way to becoming a digital scrapbooker even then.
I will be sharing some of these treasures in the near future. For now, I’m having a great time digging them up! I’m very happy about my new system for tacking memory keeping tasks.
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