How to download | WP Converter and Viewer apps | QuickLook and Spotlight filters | Older filters for macOS 10.13 and 10.14 | Home page
The applications described on this page (WP Converter, WP Viewer, Install WordPerfect Preview, and Tag WordPerfect for DOS Files) may all be downloaded and installed from a single disk image file: WP-Helpers-for-macOS.dmg.
This site provides a WP Converter app and a WP Viewer app. Use the WP Converter when you want to convert a WP file to ODT or RTF format (with inevitable loss of formatting details) or you want to convert an ODT, DOCX, RTF, or HTML file to WordPerfect 5.1 or 6+ formats. You can also convert WPG graphics to PNG or SVG formats. Run the WP Converter file and use the Settings menu to specify the default outputs.
This is the only non-commercial modern macOS application that converts files to WordPerfect format.
The WP Viewer file displays the contents (with some loss of formatting) of documents created by any version of WordPerfect.
Users of modern versions of macOS can preview WordPerfect files and search in Spotlight for their contents through the use of two filters written for me by Claude Code, and which run on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 15 Sequoia, macOS 26 Tahoe, or later versions installed. Filters written by Gero Herrmann for older versions of macOS (13 Ventura or 14 Sonoma) are still available; see below.
To install the filters, run the Install WordPerfect Preview app from the disk image file linked above. It will copy the WordPerfect Preview app to your Applications folder. Do not delete the app; the filters must be present on your disk if you want to search and preview files.
If, after a few minutes needed for macOS to scan your files, you find that the Previewer is not working then run the Repair WordPerfect Preview app which requires that you have already installed the WordPerfect Previewer from the link in the preceding paragraph.
Preview and search any WordPerfect document: As designed, the filters can view or search (1) documents created by WordPerfect for the Mac, whatever their filenames, and (2) documents created by WordPerfect for DOS or WordPerfect for Windows, if the documents have the filename extensions .WPD and .WP (and some other standard extensions).
If you want the previewer and indexer to work with any WordPerfect for DOS document, regardless of its filename extension (i.e., not .wpd), then use the Tag WordPerfect DOS Files app. It will offer to mark WPDOS files so that the previewer and indexer can read them, and will also offer to rename (with a .wpd extension) any file with an extension that prevents the previewer and indexer from working with them.
Older versions of macOS (13 Ventura or 14 Sonoma) require an earlier set of filters written by Gero Herrmann. Older methods of installing these filters are unreliable, so I have created a small macOS application called WordPerfect Filters that makes these filters easily usable by your operating system. It runs under macOS 13 or 14 only.
It is not included in the WP Helpers for macOS dmg file that contains the other apps described on this page. Instead, to install it, download this disk image and copy the WordPerfect Filters app to your Applications folder or any convenient folder. Run the application once (it displays a message, nothing more); this will prompt macOS to start using the filters. Do not delete the app; the filters must be present on your disk if you want to search and preview files.
To assure that the filters are working correctly, the disk image also includes a sample WPMac file that you should download to your Desktop and delete when you have seen that the filters are operating correctly. The filters may not start working until a WPMac file appears in a commonly-searched folder like your Desktop.
If you want to preview and search other files created by WPDOS or WPWIN, with other filename extensions, then drag the MakeWPFilesSearchable app from the disk image to any convenient folder. If a WP file can't be previewed or searched, drop it on the app. You can drop one or more files, or a folder that contains files.
If you simply run the app, it will offer to scan your entire home folder for WordPerfect files that can't be previewed or searched, and will add an "extended attribute" to the directory listings for those files so that they can be previewed and searched. This procedure makes no change to the files themselves; it only adds information to its directory listing in macOS. The app will not scan your Library, Music, Videos, or Applications folder inside your home folder.