Office for mac compatibility?

The compatibility is pretty good, but not perfect

I have found Powerpoint to be the least reliable in my experience
Most things are seamless, but not always
Some may be due to differences in fonts, etc.
But there are other quirks from time to time as well

 

As the complexity of the document goes up, compatibility goes down. This is true even for different versions of Office on Windows.

 

I have not had any issues with compatibility with Office documents when using the latest versions (Office:mac 2011 or Office 2010 on Windows)

 

I have not been so lucky. The documents in question relied heavily upon VBA. They work perfectly in Word 2010 (Windows 7), but very poorly in Word 2011 (MacOS X 10.7).

Definitive word from MisterMe: Prior to Office 2007, the most compatible version of Office on any platform was Office 2004 (MacOS X). With Office 2007, Microsoft introduced new levels of incompatibility across platforms and within its Windows platform. Office 2011 walked this back somewhat, but compatibility among various versions of Office continues to be a significant issue except in simple cases.

 

Office is barely compatible in my experience, across 2003, 2010, and 2011.

Even documents that look very simple, like a Word document with a picture, would open perfectly in 2010; open with a blank space where the picture should be in 2011; and not open at all in 2003 even with the compatibility pack installed.

Excel files work fine, so long as they don't use macros. Stuff created in 2003 doesn't work at all in 2011, but it does in 2010; stuff made in 2010 sometimes works in 2011, but not 2003; stuff made in 2011 doesn't work anywhere else.

After these problems, I didn't even try Powerpoint. If my work makes me use that, I'll use it exclusively at work, and watch telly when I'm at home.

 

Your odds are probably better with Office for Mac but you'd have to try it for yourself to confirm. It's impossible for us to definitively answer for you without having your PowerPoint files to test.

Check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/trial