What happens when I try to open a Prism 10 (.prism) file in Prism 9 and earlier?

Prism 10 introduced a new file format that uses the ".prism" file extension. This new file format is the default for Prism 10 (and will likely be used with future versions of Prism as well). Because Prism 9 (and all other earlier versions) were released before this file format was created, these earlier versions of Prism cannot open files with the .prism file extension. If you have an older version of Prism on your computer and you try to open a file with the .prism extension, you will see one of the error messages detailed below.

Fixing the problem

The easiest way to resolve these issues is to upgrade to Prism 10. You'll be able to open files using the .prism file extension, and you'll still be able to open and work with files in older formats in Prism 10 (Compatibility Mode was introduced to allow you to keep working with files using the .pzfx and .pzf file extensions).

In case you need to share a file with a colleague who is using an older version of Prism, Prism 10 also allows you to save your files inot one of the older file formats (using either the .pzfx or .pzf extensions). Simply use the File > Save As... command.

Alerts and Messages

Windows

If you use Prism 9 or older to try and open a file with the .prism extension, you'll see the message:

Unable to open file. It is probably not a GraphPad Prism file.

But don't worry. It is!

 

If you simply try to double-click the file to open it (i.e. not using the "Open" command in Prism), you'll see the message:

Windows can't open this type of file (.prism)

Because the older versions of Prism don't know that they should recognize this as a Prism file, they don't tell Windows what to do with it.

 

If you double click on a Prism graph or layout that was embedded or linked into Word or PowerPoint using Prism 10, you'll see the message:

The server application, source file, or item can't be found, or returned an unknown error. You may need to reinstall the server application.

Like the previous message, older versions of Prism haven't told Windows how to recognize this file. So when you try to open the embedded file, Windows doesn't know what to do with it.

Mac

If you use Prism 9 or older to try and open a file with the .prism extension, you'll see the message:

The document "name.prism" could not be opened. Prism cannot open files in the "data" format.

Don't be confused by the "data format" phrasing here. This is just a result of the way the new file format was created and organized. It's still a Prism file, and will open in Prism 10 just as you'd expect.

 

If you simply try to double-click the file to open it (i.e. not using the "Open" command in Prism), you'll see the message:

There is no application set to open the document "name.prism". Search the App Store for an application that can open this document, or choose an existing application on your computer.

As the message implies, once you install Prism 10, you'll be able to open these files as you would expect.