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[I can't determine where this should go; the technically oriented forums don't seem appropriate for this category of query. So I'll drop it in here and leave it to the discretion of the moderator(s) to determine where its home should be.]

Given that sometime in near future I will have to get a new Mac (likely a desktop iMac), how can I transfer desired files from my OS 9 to whatever version of OS X (or possibly beyond)?

I've got at least 3 GB of document files (created/saved in MS Word 98 in .doc or .rtf format), ca 1 GB of iTunes files in mp3 format, maybe 500 MB of jpeg/mpeg files saved in QuickTime format, and so on. I can back up (save) all of these in 700 MB chunks on CD using Toast.

Will saving these as described be sufficient to simply download them onto a new hard drive using a wholly different Mac OS? Or am I doomed to losing them forever (in which case I would want to reduce as many of them as I can to paper in order not to lose them)?

And what about information stored within other applications using the OS 9 framework (eg, calendar entries, my browser's huge file of Bookmarks)?

Any sage advice would be most appreciated.

iMacDVSE / 400MHz / 256MB RAM / 14GB / OS9.0.4

Data files have nothing to do with the OS you’re running, so from that point of view you can simply transfer them from one OS to another. That said, the OS does affect which apps you can run, and those apps may not be able to open certain (older) file formats. I don’t see such issues on the horizon with the formats you list. But just in case, you may want to hang on to your old Mac long enough to test the various file types and formats on your new Mac, so that you could save possible problem files in a more amenable format at the source OS.

As to app-associated files (bookmarks, calendars etc), you can almost always export those in one way or another, and subsequently import them into contemporary apps. You might want to look at the various app menus to explore those export options, or return here with more specific questions.

In general, your plan to back up all your data files is a good one (I hope this is not the first time for such a backup!). Finally, another reason to hang on to your old Mac is that you may be able to transfer your data files via an ethernet cable or (perhaps) via FireWire disk mode. This will go faster than flipping disks, but each way should do.

Merci. Excellent info. I'll stop fretting.
(And I back up on a regular basis. I just didn't know whether the backups were transferable.)