Convert WordPerfect documents (wpd) to WordPad (rtf)

One of my friends has a significant legacy of WordPerfect (.wpd) documents. They recently upgraded their machine and are trying to make a go of using just the built-in WordPad for writing things. However WordPad can't read WordPerfect wpd files natively (for the most part - I found indications that wpd is based on rtf - though I opened one up and I don't see the resemblance). So the other day it finally got to the point where they had to read (edit actually) one of those wpd files, one way or another.

First I checked the cost of WordPerfect. Turns out Corel still owns it and at this point they think it is hot, as they are pricing it a lot closer to MS Office than they used to. Forget that.

Next I looked at Shareware converters. There are some out there, but honestly I'm too afraid of picking up a nasty from Shareware/Freeware lately. I think in order to make money folks are writing utilities and giving them away, but selling a spot inside the utility to the highest bidder. I still have some trust for open source (due to the fact that you can download the source and look at it). The rest makes me shudder.

The next best alternative looked to be Open Office (hey open source wudda-ya-know). But that still seemed to be overkill for the task. However I should note I did download Open Office as a backup solution, as they do support both wpd and rtf, and should be able to convert nicely between them (though there are gotchas here too I read - the wpd format is rumored to be difficult to get formatting, especially table formatting, out of).

But first I took a look at Microsoft's site to see if they had anything that would help us. After all Wordpad is their product. In looking around I stumbled on what I am terming an elegant if twisted solution. Microsoft offers a free Word viewer. Word has format converters for many types of non-native document formats. So I installed the Word viewer (make sure you do a search for Word Viewer and take the latest from Microsoft Download Center, as there are several versions available). Then I installed all the Word format converters I could find. Bingo! I open the WPD in the Word Viewer, which can now understand it just fine. You can't do more than view (with the viewer), but viewing happens to include printing, and COPYING to the clipboard. So I simply "select all", copy, and paste into a new Wordpad window, and we are in business, for the low low price of nada.