For such files, my only option is to force-open them in TextEdit, which at least preserves the accents. There is also an option called 'Recover text from any file' (which is apparently a file format in MS's parlance) but it fails to preserve accented characters, so even that option is useless. When I try to open them, Word throws a 'Convert File' dialog box asking me to choose a file format to convert from, but 'Word 3 document' and 'Word 4 document' are not listed as options and 'Rich Text Format' does not work.
I have old Word 3/4 documents from 1988/1989 that Word 2011 (or Word 2008 for that matter) is simply unable to open, no matter which option I choose. I am afraid this 'hint' is simply incorrect.
