# PC vs MAC compatibility issues



## curioususer

Good Evening!

I would like to apologize in advance if this issue has already been discussed. And I'd be thankful for any info and advice. 

I am now considering to buy MacBook. My only and major concern is compatibility. I mostly work with text (word), excel and PowerPoint docs. and at work I use PC. Often times I would work from home and email my documents to my office computer. Therefore, it's extremely important to know that I will not have to deal with editing my docs once they reach my work PC. 

I'd be immensely grateful if you could clarify this issue. So, do I have to worry about compatibility? 

Thank a lot.


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## drummerbull

Any Microsoft Office document can be used in OS X and Windows without any issues. They are now compatible with one another.


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## exegete

With a few caveats:

1. Make sure identical fonts are installed.

2. Make sure that VBA is not used (2008 does not support at all; 2004 does but is based on VB5, whereas Office 2003 is based on VB6)

3. Make sure many of the "AutoFormat" options in Powerpoint are turned off on both computers.


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## curioususer

Thank you very much!


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## dannyn

like they said previously...
office is available for mac.. so your pretty much set..


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## Farmgirl22

dannyn said:


> like they said previously...
> office is available for mac.. so your pretty much set..


Open Office is also a good choice for those of us who can't afford the expensive Office Suite.

Keynote and Pages are essentially Apple's version of Word and Powerpoint--they are easy to use, and will open, read, and save in Windows friendly formats (except for the 2007 format--although there will probably be a "reader" or something soon to compensate for that). I personally like these two programs pretty well, and really wish that Apple would offer some programs (to accompany Keynote/Pages) similar to Access and Excel--that would make things absolutely perfect.

Mail comes on (as far as I know) every Mac, and it's pretty similar to Outlook/Express...

Hopefully that will help you cover all the bases! :up: Good luck with your new purchase!! :up:


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## dannyn

they do offer an excel now.. i dont rember what it is called.. i am not at my mac right now..
but in iwork 08 they offer it.. 
i will post it when i get back to my mac.


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## dannyn

it called numbers 08 and its a lot like excel
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...wa/RSLID?mco=MTIwMzc&fnode=home&nplm=MA790Z/A


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## adamm321

We just bought a Mac and started using it last week. I ordered iWorks with it. I had spreadsheets on my old PC that were created with MS Works. No one told me when I was ordering that it doesn't read Works documents. The iWorks program will not recognize Works documents. You have to find a way to get it to someone who has an Office program and change them to .xls extension documents instead of .xlr extensions that Works programs create. My daughter created a document on a Word program and someone at Apple taught her a neat trick and now she has no problem opening it in Pages any more. But, today, she sent something to someone on a WinPc and they called her to say they couldn't open it, so she is mildly frustrated so far. We are hoping that we can work it all out, but I am considering changing over to MS Office for Mac instead of the iWorks program, thinking that might be easier. Another thing. A tech at the Apple store told me they are discontinuing the iWorks program. Nice they didn't tell me that bf I bought it. I asked him again, because I wasn't sure I heard him right and he said yes, that's right. So...if anyone has heard anything about that, it might be of interest on this thread.

adam


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## curioususer

Thanks everybody. I am still thinking about it. Mac seems to be perfect to me. But yet again I'm a bit concerned about this whole "we can't open your document issue". 

As far as I understand, I can have both Mac/Apple and Windows OS installed at MacPro. Then, another diletant quest. One of the greatest things about having Mac is no need to worry about viruses. if I get Windows for Mac installed, am I back to sq 1 and would need my anti-virus?

Thanks


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## dannyn

dont worry about mac viruses.. for now..
its not a big problem.
but for windows you need protection


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## adamm321

I hear you curioususer...I had the same concerns because I have to connect to my office with windows. So far I haven't installed windows. I am using an old winpc when I need to connect to work, but I went ahead and bought a macbookpro, intending that when my old winpc dies, I plan on putting windows on the mac to connect to work. I talked to the Apple sales rep, who told me that if I am just connecting to the office server, not much reason to have to worry about virus bc they have excellent security and doubtful there are any viruses on our work server. If I am going on the internet, then I should get off windows and go on the mac. Which will be no problem for us. As far as documents, I would get your questions answered, specifically about which documents you use, which documents and software your business contacts use and in what way the apple will handle it. I am satisfied that what I need and the accommodations needed to continue to interact in a windows world, will allow me to use the apple very comfortably. Once we get these initial situations straightened out, I expect smooth sailing ahead. We just didn't ask enough questions before we bought it to know how to get the documents issues straight from the start. If I had gotten MS Office for mac instead of iWorks with the machine, I would have had no problem. 

Hope that helps..


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## Farmgirl22

curioususer said:


> Thanks everybody. I am still thinking about it. Mac seems to be perfect to me. But yet again I'm a bit concerned about this whole "we can't open your document issue".
> 
> As far as I understand, I can have both Mac/Apple and Windows OS installed at MacPro. Then, another diletant quest. One of the greatest things about having Mac is no need to worry about viruses. *if I get Windows for Mac installed, am I back to sq 1 and would need my anti-virus?*
> 
> Thanks


If you use Windows on your Mac machine you will need anti-virus--not for the Mac partition, but for the Windows partition. I had boot camp (which was the "test version" of what you'd be getting on the Leopard OS) and I still had to have all the malware programs I had on my desktop PC. There's some pretty good freeware ones out there though, and if you aren't using it for tons of internet stuff, you may not have to worry too much. My windows partition experiences internet communication ONLY when I use Pampered Partner, for any other internet use I open Firefox on my Mac side.


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## curioususer

Adamm and Farmgirl,

Thank you. It is helpful. At least, I will know what to ask for/about once I'm talking to sales people.

However, I'm still trying to find an optimistic answer in re: compatibility, i.e. that Mac's docs created in mac OS would be ok to open and use on PC. I know that it's usually not a problem the other way around. I just don't know whether it's a good idea to have switching OS to create different files. 

thanks


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## Farmgirl22

Your documents will open just fine on a PC--when you do email attachments you get the option of "windows friendly attachments", and as long as you save (or export in the case of pages/keynote) the files in a windows friendly extension you won't have any problems at all. It's got more to do with the file extensions being wrong than anything else--if you save your documents and make sure that you save them in a manner that will put the extensions on them for windows (i.e. *.doc, *.docx, *.jpg, *.xls, etc.) then there won't be a problem.

Always use TRUE TYPE fonts though--otherwise you may get some garbling....Apple and Windows have some slightly different fonts, most of the time if you use the fancy ones they just become slightly less fancy when opened on a windows machine, but once in a great while you'll find one that comes up as gibberish. This might be where people get scared of the lack of "compatability"....I've goofed up more than one document using a fancy font and not having it be legible on the windows computer.

Hope that helps!!


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## tomdkat

adamm321 said:


> I had spreadsheets on my old PC that were created with MS Works. No one told me when I was ordering that it doesn't read Works documents.


This is an issue on Windows machines as well. People using MS Works need to explicitly save their documents in Word or RTF format to exchange their files with others more easily.

I support some Macs and Windows machines and I haven't had any problems exchanging documents between the two platforms. I've used OpenOffice on the Mac to manage MS Office documents and I've used MS Office on Windows machines. I also use OpenOffice on OS X to created PDF files that I've opened on other platforms without issue.

Currently, I send invoices I create in PDF format using OpenOffice on Linux to a recipient who opens and prints it using Adobe Acrobat Reader on OS X. Works great! :up:

Peace...


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