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VickyVee · Aug 25, 2004, 05:41 AM

I am a writer and just picked up a new Powerbook, and Microsoft Office. However, I am petrified to switch my last ten years of writing/Word files over to the Mac. They all work fine on the Mac. But I'm worried that, years later, if I'm on a PC again, the files will have formatting and other errors. I'd hate to have errors in what amounts to my life's work. So I'm thinking of returning the Mac, though I love it, and staying with a PC.

I don't care if a font or something minor changes, but has anyone had major problems with compatability btwn Mac/PC?

Any thoughts or advice?

VV

Chinasaur · Aug 25, 2004, 05:59 AM

Back everything up (which is good advice anytime), and store off-site. Then, no matter what happens, you are covered.

Best of luck in the switch.

Randman · Aug 25, 2004, 06:06 AM

Office 2004 has compatability tests to check it with the different versions of it, including the peecee versions so you're safe there.
The vast majority of things that you use as a writer are going to be fine in either format, but if you really want to be 100% sure, get VPC and actually open the files in Windows, or later on, get a cheap PC.

cpac · Aug 25, 2004, 07:29 AM

1 thought:

(1) using these things on a Mac is not necessarily any more likely to screw up formatting than using them on different PCs with slightly different fonts/versions of Word.

2 Suggestions:

(1) back-up. You can always burn a copy of your life's work to a cd or two and put them in a safe deposit box

(2) save them all as .pdf's - the formatting can't get screwed up then.

mitchell_pgh · Aug 25, 2004, 02:16 PM

You shouldn't really worry. If you are REALLY concerned about old copy being altered, you shouldn't be saving them as Word documents as I've seen just as many strange PC to PC issues as I have heard of Mac to PC or PC to Mac issues.

The ONLY annoying thing for me is that the ' can shift from time to time (usually when I'm designing... so it's not really specific to Word.

You should also know that thousands of writers use Macs... so it's not like you would be the only one. I say back them up and move them over.

Millennium · Aug 25, 2004, 02:36 PM

Back everything up. Burn it on the best CDs you can find. If you can get them duplicated with a stamped version (rather than a burned version) that's even better.

As for Mac/Windows Word compatibility disasters, I can only think of one major one. Read Volume 2 of Pet Shop of Horrors; it's a manga published in the US by Tokyopop. Some incompetent editor let a basic error slip through, such that most of the apostrophes in this book are replaced with � characters instead. This was caused by a text-encoding issue.

Most of these should be solved in Office 2004, however, so there should be no problems. However, check the apostrophes and quotation marks in your documents, just in case.

Love Calm Quiet · Aug 25, 2004, 02:40 PM

? They did no copy editing ?

mitchell_pgh · Aug 25, 2004, 02:43 PM

I've gotten the � issue before... but 2004 cleaned much of that up. It's a little hellish when doing some web stuff because of all the special characters etc. etc.

It's the price of having a smart OS.

Millennium · Aug 25, 2004, 03:08 PM

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
? They did no copy editing ?

I'll tell you, it makes me wonder sometimes.

Raining Down in Texas · Aug 25, 2004, 06:47 PM

The current version of Word for Windows can't read files made before about 10 years ago, so you should consider finding a file format that will not lock you out of your data in the future. RTF would be a good candidate; there are converters for just about every platform. PDF might be another if you won't need to edit the documents in the future.

VickyVee · Aug 27, 2004, 02:26 AM

Okay, I'm relieved. Thanks for the feedback. I can now switch over to Mac with some peace of mind. Will back up my files on CD, and put them on my Powerbook. Probably will take the advice to save everything in rtf, just to be safe. And someone turned me on to DataViz, in case I have problems in the future. I noticed in Final Draft, as was pointed out, the apostrophes turn into the umlaut 0s on PC. Other than that everything's been perfect.

I'm jumping on to the Top 5 shareware/freeware thread now to load up my computer. Expect to see me around. Thanks for the great welcome.

thePurpleGiant · Aug 27, 2004, 05:49 AM

Originally posted by VickyVee:
Okay, I'm relieved. Thanks for the feedback. I can now switch over to Mac with some peace of mind. Will back up my files on CD, and put them on my Powerbook. Probably will take the advice to save everything in rtf, just to be safe. And someone turned me on to DataViz, in case I have problems in the future. I noticed in Final Draft, as was pointed out, the apostrophes turn into the umlaut 0s on PC. Other than that everything's been perfect.

I'm jumping on to the Top 5 shareware/freeware thread now to load up my computer. Expect to see me around. Thanks for the great welcome.

Good luck with everything! Rest assured, Office 2004 for Mac is quite a nice piece of software that I'm sure you will enjoy using. Be sure to ask around here if you have any questions when you get your Mac! (the switch is easy, but there will always be a few things here and there that you might not be able to figure out)