File Compatibility Issues: PC--> MBP

Hi, all.

I've heard some users complain about the differences between Apple's version of MS Office Home and the PC variety.

Speaking generally, have you noticed any issues in working on Word/Excel/Powerpoint files on your MBP that were created on a PC, and vice versa?

I'm asking because my company (as do most) uses PCs at work, and I'm wondering if there could be any issues in my working on MS Office files at home with a MBP and then planning to send them to colleagues who are using PCs.

Thank you.

 

Not really any issues, but I have experienced some frustration from using the different versions of Office due to the inconsistencies in the user interface. Of course, excel workbooks that contain VBA will not work in Excel 2008 (Mac).

 

Macros dont work on the mac version. This mostly effects Excel. Sometimes pictures and graphs move a little in Word. If you format a large word document with page breaks and section breaks and so on you will find that when you open it on the mac some things have moved. It means that the last line of a paragraph or caption of a graph of picture might now be on the next page.

Powerpoint seems ok. No problem that I have found. Of course access, visio, project and outlook dont work on the mac at all.

 

I'd recommend looking into free solutions like Open Office or Google docs, as they offer pretty much the same features as Office for Mac, but for free, if you feel like saving money. And it fully supports opening, editing, creating, and saving office file types.

 

If you absolutely need the compatibility, run windows under virtual machine and install office inside the virtual machine. you can also run windows under bootcamp and use it that way as well.

 

Thank you, Xhibit.

Do you guys agree with Xhibit's advice about MS Office vs. Open Office on the Mac?

Thanks.

 

No I dont. for 100% compatibility there is only Office 2007 (or 2003) for Windows. for 95% compatibility Office 2008 for mac will work.

Google Docs and Open Office are ok for opening letters or high school essays in doc format. If you want to open a doc with foot notes, bibliography, graphs, table of content and a complex section numbering system then you can forget about non MS products.

If you want to open Excel with graphs and and complex formulas or powerpoint with slide transitions, smart graphics and transparencies then you need Ms Office.

 

while iWork and free stuff like Openoffice and Neooffice are great.... they mess up formats from MS formats more often than MS Office for Mac does... actual MS Office usually has no issues.

 

Sometime it's the font's used between the 2 do not match. Generally once these have been resolved they work ok. If you used advanced features these do behave differently between mac and pc.

 

We are always using files back and forth in our office between office 2008 for mac and office 2007 for windows. Never have we had a single issue.

 

I never had issues like you. I always save as " x.97-2003" for my excel, PP & word docs.

 

google doc does not really provide a lot of format tools, but it is convenient.

 

It depends on the complexity of the documents and what features the documents use. The best way to see is make use of the free trial and test a variety of your documents.

My experience has been:
- Nothing is 100% with Office 2007 except Office 2007. 2008 offers no macro support for any document type that messes up spreadsheets most commonly but is trouble for Word and Powerpoint too. Embedded documents also cause many problems if the originating application is not part of office (ok to embed an excel spreadsheet in your PP but beware embedding a PDF cause the identifier in OSX and Windows for Adobe is differed and you won't be able to view the embedded document). Lots of little annoying stuff like this
- iWork and OpenOffice are even worse. Not only do they have the above problems but you'll start running into formatting issues, features that can't be converted etc. The more complex the doc the worse the issues. Can be great for simple stuff though.

Hope this helps