Can LO open an old Apple Works cwk file and preserve formatting

I’m trying to convert an old Apple Works cwk file to a current document format (pdf, docx), and I had read somewhere that LO could open cwk files.

Hello,
yes, normally, LO can open cwk files and it tries to preserve most formatting (but of course, if your documents are complex, some problems may appear).

After the conversion, if your documents are text files, you can save them as .docx, if there are spreadsheets, you can save them as .xlsx, … or you can print them in a .pdf files.

If OP intends to continue editing the converted documents in LO, it is much (x7) better to store it in native format .odt, .ods, etc. This will avoid future compatibility problems with external-to-internal conversions when opening again the document and back when saving.

Unfortunately, LibO opens the file as gibberish, and saving as any file type is the same gibberish. I don’t see a way in commenting that I can attach a screenshot of the opened file, or attach a copy of the cwk file I am trying to open.

I upvoted your question to grant you enough karma points (privileges) so that you can attach images or files.

Another method to attach some file is to add a ticket at https://sourceforge.net/p/libmwaw/tickets/ (the library which does the conversion) or to file a bug at https://bugs.documentfoundation.org with product “Document Liberation project”…