Importing WordPerfect files in DT: convert to PDF or RTF?

I’m a complete newbie, ready to take the DT plunge. I have a quarter-century of WordPerfect documents I’d like to be able to search, find, and then edit in a Mac word processor (Nisus Writer Pro seems the best candidate so far). Since switching to Mac, my .wpd’s are nearly impossible to search.

My question is: should I convert these many hundreds of .wpd’s to .rtf or .pdf in order for the text to be searchable by DT? Either one? Does it matter? there a number of programs that will do the conversion, but I want to this efficiently and effectively, since many hours will be involved.

Thanks, Experienced Ones!

I would definitely look at converting these files from the WordPerfect format. What format is largely a personal choice, depending on what you’ll use them for (and aesthetics, if you want to preserve formatting).

Thanks, Jim. What you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter which format I convert WordPerfect files to—either pdf or rtf will do, as long as I do convert them—and that DTPO can search both pdf and rtf perfectly well.

So, all I need to do is set up my database(s), convert my wpd files and then drag ‘n’ drop them into my new DT databases. Then I can search for what I wrote in 1987, not that any of it is even relevant anymore.

A cinch! Thanks.

Pretty much my opinion, yes. If I needed later editability, I’d opt for RTF (or plain text if I didn’t need it to look pretty). PDF if I just wanted a “locked down” version of the file for reference.