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Who works with a pc @work & apple @home

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pelican7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 20, 2009
13
0
I WANT to purchase an iMac but my partner is a big fan of Lenovo's think pad. I'm concerned on the compatibility of working excel on a daily basis from OS X to windows and vice versa. In otherwords, taking a spreadsheet, created in OS X, saving it in a flash drive and then opening it up on his windows computer. Can we co-exist on basic office software. I'm not sure how prevelent this is, one person with a Mac and one with a pc viewing and sharing the same data. Somewhat clueless.
Thanks for any info.
 
I use my MBP for work, and a PC as my main computer. But that's besides the point. I think what you're asking is how well do Office 08 and Office 07 work together in a mixed mac/windows environment.

The answer is that is varies. If your documents are straight forward without anything fancy, there won't be any issue. Some of the more advanced things (VB macros come to mind) don't work in Office 08. Probably not too much of an issue.

Another issue is that macs often can not see a windows machine, even when the windows machine can see the mac. So if you have a network, don't expect it to work at all for file sharing without involving yourself with IP addresses and the like.
 
office for mac saves as 07 office windows file system, so don't worry about that, if your not using publisher you'll be ok, and if you are, then get iwork, that has full compatibility both ways, but as for working on a pc then on a mac, you won't really notice a difference and all your work files will still work
signature_upsidedownsmiley.jpg
 
I work at a computer store so I have to work with PCs (I sell and fix them) and most of the computers in my school are PCs too, only a dozen or so are Macs. But at home, I stay away from PCs :p

MS Office for Mac works brilliantly with PCs too and if you want to use iWork, you can save documents in Windows format too which works flawlessly in most cases
 
While I absolutely love my Mac, Office 2008 for Mac just plain sucks (at least performance-wise). Everything about it is sluggish - loading, menus, any kind of layout changes, etc. My $399 Acer laptop runs Office 2007 and it flies. Absolutely no comparison. I hate to say it, but if you plan on running Office heavily, it may almost be better to get a nice PC. But then again, I personally can put up with Office 2008's annoyances to keep my Mac - but then again, again, I'm not what you'd call a "heavy" office user (I write my tests and quizzes and the occasional PowerPoint, but that's about it). So, YMMV, but this is my opinion.
 
I run a Mac and PC all day and I have zero issue with office between the two. Frankly, that's why I use office and that I have been using office in a professional environment for 15 years. For me iWork and Open Office are cute, but they're not what my company uses so I clearly gravitate towards what is used daily.
 
Hi I'm a PC at work and a Mac at night ;)

I use both, one for work and the other for home use. I find almost zero problems with passing documents and such between the two. I even use Dropbox to synchronize my files between the two.

Personally, I've heard good things about lenovo, but if you want an iMac get one, and let your partner get what ever they want. That will certainly provide some peace in the household.

For instance, I have a MBP, but my wife uses a Dell (yuck I know ;) ) and she's content with that and I'm happy with my selection.
 
I've heard that excel pivot tables don't work on the Mac version of office, but I haven't tried it personally. That was the major reason my friend runs windows on his mac
 
I'm a pc at work and a mac at home and have no difficulty. There are a couple of PC apps that I must run at home if I want to work on work stuff, so I run Win 7 under Fusion, with no difficulty whatsoever.

Office Mac is very compatible with Office Win, too. If you're absolutely concerned about compatibility you can always install Office 2007 Win on the home mac, if that's feasible.
 
I havent touched a PC in years. :D
All the studio's I work and produce at are fully mac.
 
I have not had any trouble with pivot tables moving between my office PC and the BlackMac at home. As long as the two machines have similar versions of Office it should not be a problem. And to the poster who commented on not being able to see windows machines on a network, I say Boo! I use an AirPort Extreme and a Time Capsule on our home network and when my kids bring friends over to c work on school projects they never had any problems seeing the other machines when one of the friends brought a PC into the house. The biggest problem usually was getting the PC to wirelessly see the network. :eek:
So, if you want an iMac, buy one. The incompatibility myth is just that, a myth. Enjoy. :cool:
 
keifer64 said:
I've heard that excel pivot tables don't work on the Mac version of office, but I haven't tried it personally. That was the major reason my friend runs windows on his mac
Click to expand...
We had issues at work with pivot tables from PC Office 2007 to Mac Office 2008, but they seem fine when going from PC Office 2003 to Mac Office 2008
 
pelican7 said:
I WANT to purchase an iMac but my partner is a big fan of Lenovo's think pad. I'm concerned on the compatibility of working excel on a daily basis from OS X to windows and vice versa. In otherwords, taking a spreadsheet, created in OS X, saving it in a flash drive and then opening it up on his windows computer. Can we co-exist on basic office software. I'm not sure how prevelent this is, one person with a Mac and one with a pc viewing and sharing the same data. Somewhat clueless.
Thanks for any info.
Click to expand...

I work in a mixed Windows/Linux environment and use a Mac Pro at home. I also have Office 2008 for Mac and use Office 2003 & 2007 for Windows at work.

The thing is: Just like iWork 09 and StarOffice, Office 2008 for Mac is also NOT fully compatible with Office for Windows. Office:Mac screws up the formatting of the documents and it also does not work with any makros.

If you need full compatibility with the Microsoft world - stay with Microsoft and do not waste your time with OS X. End of discussion.

However, nothing keeps you from running Windows and Office for Windows on Apple hardware - Macs are great PCs.
 
So, if I read you guys correctly, I will be OK to purchase iWork 09 if I only need to communicate with others (friends/family) via Office for "basic" stuff? For example, if my brother sends me an excel/word document, with iWork I can read it, make changes, and return it to him on his PC?
 
I work in IT and work with windows computers and servers all day long. I use macs at home and have never had a problem switching between the two (or three when I throw linux in the mix).
 
I have a ThinkPad for work and a MBP for home. I'm running office 2004 on my mac and office 2003 on my ThinkPad with no problems manipulating files between the two. Of course if I'm not working I am only on my MBP, but to each his own.
 
We use both Macs and Pcs here as we develop filemaker applications that must run on both platforms. We run all your basic office programs, filemaker, and adobe products and never have an issue.
At home it is strictly Mac.
 
orangerock said:
So, if I read you guys correctly, I will be OK to purchase iWork 09 if I only need to communicate with others (friends/family) via Office for "basic" stuff? For example, if my brother sends me an excel/word document, with iWork I can read it, make changes, and return it to him on his PC?
Click to expand...
Right. If someone sends you a not-overly-complex Excel or Word document, iWork should be fine for you to open it, edit it, and then return it.

In an office environment, I'd recommend Microsoft Office for Mac instead of iWork. I'm the only one in my group to use a Mac at work for their main machine, and the only problem I've had opening/modifying/saving Office files with my Windows coworkers is that my Office for Mac can't open Office files that were encrypted in Windows. Everything else has been fine. No formatting issues or anything.

iWork, on the other hand, was consistently causing formatting problems, or didn't support things like "checkboxes" that we use in Word forms all of the time.

You can get a free 30-day trial of both Office for Mac and iWork, if that would help with the decision. :)
 
I have a Windows laptop at home, a Linux laptop, and a Power Mac at school. I get absolutely no issues performing office work with all three (in fact I get no issue at all with the rest of the software I use) because I use OpenOffice.org which has a version for each platform and works the same regardless of it.

For not-to-complicated MS Office documents OpenOffice is very compatible (it also opens 2007 files). For Mac it is called "NeoOffice" but it is basically the same.

There is another approach that might give even more compatibility, and that's the creation of a virtual machine. Unfortunately my PPC Mac can not do that but Intel Macs can: you create a virtual machine, install Windows on it, and the Office. I discovered that the only way I find Windows fast, responsive, and not annoying, is by confining it to a virtual machine with no Internet access :cool:

Thanks,
Joe.
 
orangerock said:
So, if I read you guys correctly, I will be OK to purchase iWork 09 if I only need to communicate with others (friends/family) via Office for "basic" stuff? For example, if my brother sends me an excel/word document, with iWork I can read it, make changes, and return it to him on his PC?
Click to expand...

With the exception of editing an Excel spreadsheet, I usually send everyone a PDF file now. PDF can pretty much be read across the board. No need to worry about compatibility etc. Do my write up in Pages and print to PDF then send it off...

Excel is another issue all together. If the person receiving the file isn't going to be doing any modifying, pdf the sucker. If they are......
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I use my MBP for work, and a PC as my main computer. But that's besides the point. I think what you're asking is how well do Office 08 and Office 07 work together in a mixed mac/windows environment.

The answer is that is varies. If your documents are straight forward without anything fancy, there won't be any issue. Some of the more advanced things (VB macros come to mind) don't work in Office 08. Probably not too much of an issue.

Another issue is that macs often can not see a windows machine, even when the windows machine can see the mac. So if you have a network, don't expect it to work at all for file sharing without involving yourself with IP addresses and the like.
Click to expand...

What is the difference between using an IP address and or a computer name?

Same can be said for a win only network. There have been plenty of times I can ping the windows box but can't see it on the network.
 
I would just dual boot or use Sun Virtual Box and run Windows and Office for PC. And then for basic stuff I'd use Open Office in OS X.

Wait. That is what I do!
 
Fizzoid said:
We had issues at work with pivot tables from PC Office 2007 to Mac Office 2008, but they seem fine when going from PC Office 2003 to Mac Office 2008
Click to expand...

Have had no problems with Pivot Tables using Mac Office 2008. Only problem was an employee trying to figure out how to do PTs in PC Office 2007 since the interface is different than PC 2003.
 
pelican7 said:
I WANT to purchase an iMac but my partner is a big fan of Lenovo's think pad. I'm concerned on the compatibility of working excel on a daily basis from OS X to windows and vice versa. In otherwords, taking a spreadsheet, created in OS X, saving it in a flash drive and then opening it up on his windows computer. Can we co-exist on basic office software. I'm not sure how prevelent this is, one person with a Mac and one with a pc viewing and sharing the same data. Somewhat clueless.
Thanks for any info.
Click to expand...

We work with Excel extensively between PC/Mac with no problems. For anything that is an issue (like macros, since Mac Office 2008 won't run them), you can use Parallels/Fusion and run Windows/Office 2003 inside it.
 
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