Windows and Apple: A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock'n'Roll

by : Catherine Coloff

Whether you have good vibrations for Macs, or too much respect for Windows to consider any other operating system, enough software and cloud solutions are available to meet your needs!


MS Office for Mac is a robust version of Office that is very similar (almost identical) to Office for Windows.  Although Microsoft does not offer Access or Publisher for the Mac version, full versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint are available for use.  The files you create are compatible and able to be opened, read, and changed back and forth using Mac and Windows version of Office.  Some people may be dancing in the street knowing they can get a Mac and not be concerned with compatibility!  Others may have been sittin' on the dock of the bay, and may now feel guilt free with the thought of having a Windows computer and a Mac to get their work done, and not be concerned about compatibility.

If you already own a Mac and have decided to use Pages and Numbers instead of purchasing Office, that's fine too!  Although not identical, both Pages and Numbers offer a "save as" feature that allows you to save your files in an alternative format to make them usable through MS office.

Still can't get no satisfaction?  Don't be cruel!  Let's shake, rattle, and roll toward cloud options that cater to both Mac and Windows alike!

Do you find yourself emailing file attachments back and forth all the live long day?  Google Docs may be a great option for you!  Think of Google Docs as your personal file share service on the Cloud.  Rather than worry about getting all shook up on which file version is the most recent one in your list of emails, just keep one copy of the file saved in Google Docs, and provide key people access to your Google Drive, so everyone can work from the same file copy, and not go crazy keeping track of who has the latest revision!  Google Docs also offers simplified versions of office applications, all for free, and all cross compatible with existing versions of MS Office.  And, of course, Google Docs is friendly to both Mac and Windows!

You've surely heard it through the grapevine that Microsoft offers a menu of cloud solutions that satisfy both Mac and Windows!  MS Office 365 is Microsoft's cloud solution which offers options to accommodate to a variety of business needs, such as email, web-based Office apps, and OneDrive (Microsoft's hard drive in the sky).  As a business using Office 365, each user can log into a shared OneDrive to access files similar to how I mentioned with Google Docs.  OneDrive is also offered as a standalone service 8GB of free storage.  Imagine…another solution that works uniformly with Mac and Windows!

At last, the debate between Mac and Windows' usability may be coming to an end!  What a wonderful world it is today!  And if you are still California dreamin' and you still think Macs are for graphic designers, even Adobe Creative Suites has joined the cloud with Adobe Creative Cloud.  Graphic designers can keep on keeping on with Windows or Macs, and can share files with each other too!

If, after taking in all this information, you catch yourself saying, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for," IT Radix recommends giving your trusted IT provider a call.  Based on your needs, they'll tell you what you want, what you really, really want.

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