OpenOffice is normally quite versatile with the file types it supports – many old or proprietary formats can be opened and edited just fine. However, .wps files are an exception – even though the support for this format has been promised long ago (in 2005), the current distribution of OO still can’t open them. In this article I’ll describe several ways to handle MS Works files in OO.

Some custom OpenOffice versions include the libwps library that lets you open WPS files. In particular, the Ubuntu version and NeoOffice include this library. With libwps the process is completely seemless, as you can handle the .wps file like any other file.

Another possibility is to use the command-line converter wps2odt. You can find this converter on SourceForge. Note that this software is only available as source, so you’ll probably need to install CygWin if you intend to compile and use it on Windows. On a related note, there’s also the wps2html converter (also command-line) that can convert the WPS document to a HTML file. However, be warned that the HTML version may not preserve the original layout.

Speaking of file conversion, there are also a few .wps to .doc available, including the free online converter Zamzar.com. OpenOffice can handle .doc files easily, and you can re-save them in the native OO format later if you want. The best part about the converter(s) mentioned in the linked article is that they were created by Microsoft. While that might not sound like a good thing to an OpenOffice fan, do keep in mind that MS is the progenitor of the WPS format, so their converter is probably/hopefully the best available.