[KenDallas]

I have been considering the PowerBook G4 as a possible replacement for my Dell laptop. Although I have heard of many success stories regarding PC-to-MAC migration, I have heard just as many horror stories.

Almost 90% of my work involves the Microsoft Office suite of products. I personally am not very fond of Microsoft and their policies, the Office suite of products have become dominant among corporate users. My work involves a great deal of collaboration with these users and the ability to exchange Word, Excel, PowerPoint files between PCs & my PowerBook would be THE paramount factor in my decision.

I was warned a year ago against Office X, citing frequent crashes under Jaguar. As I understand, improved versions of the operating system, and Office (Office 2004) are now being shipped. I suppose you now what my question is. How stable are the Office 2004 applications running under Panther? I also have emails from the past 5 years archived in Outlook (.pst) format. How easy would it be to import these .pst files into Entourage 2004?. I plan to use 1.5mhz G4, with 1.5gb of Ram.

Any and all help greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

P.S. I may have follow-up questions in the next few weeks to come, so please bear my naivet� regarding the Apple operating environment.

[JKT]

I have no experience of Office v.X or 2004, but one thing that you could consider if absolute 100% compatibility is paramount for you is to get VirtualPC and run Office for Windows instead. This could actually work out as being much more economical for you if you already have licences for Office for Windows and Windows itself (in which case the cost is $129 for Virtual PC which is roughly half the price of Office for the Mac, IIRC).

Just in case you don't know, VirtualPC lets you run the Windows operating system on your Mac via emulation - it is slower than running it on a real-life PC because of this and isn't appropriate for e.g. 3D gaming, but for an office suite the performance would be fine.

However, wait and see what people say about their experience of using Office for the Mac versus Office on a PC.

[crazeazn]

some quick information from a fellow switcher (hope it helps!):

1. access doesnt exist for the mac msft office suite (better alternatives for mac exist)
2. word, excel, and powerpoint has no problems moving back and forth whatsoever (i do it daily) using v.X and 2004, I'm currently a college student so all the professors use these formats as the norm. all my existing files have no trouble being read or editted.
3. outlook .pst files are a pain the ass to transfer to entourage. i had this problem as well since i migrated over, if i remember correctly i had to move the outlook emails to outlook express and had to migrate them over to entourage which turned them each into folders. it was a complicated process but i'm assuming theres a much faster way know since then....
4. i've never had any crashing with the office suites and jaguar (10.3.6)

[SSharon]

I have used Microsoft Office 98, 2001, v.X and now 2004 and every version has gotten better. The difference to me between v.X and 2004 is not so great, but to many others it is huge. One thing it now includes which you will find of interest is a compatibilty check for any and all versions of office for both mac and pc. I have never had any problems going back and forth but I deal mainly with word although I do use powerpoint and excel on occasion (a few times a month maybe). Other people here in a windows environment can tell you what issues if any remain in terms of compatibility, but again I have found none. I don't think you need to run virtual pc either as I think office 2004 is more stable than it. When I use word by the way I am usually recording audio with the notebook feature for about an hour at a time on a 1.2ghz ibook, I have had one time where it stalled but I think it was an isolated event as it has never happened again.

Feel free to post more specific questions about what types of files you need to move back and forth (don't just say powerpoint say it has embedded video or whatever). You will also have more luck in the Software forum as your question does not directly relate to what hardware you are using.

Hope that helps.

[Thraxes]

I have to exchange files and data between the mac and PC world pretty often and have come to following conclusions: MS Office compatibility between platforms is almost 100%.

Problems occur when you import pictures (at least on Office v.X., don't have 2004): On the Mac when you insert a picture using the insert Picture dialog or drag and drop the file itself you will have no problems with the picture on a windows machine, if you copy / paste the picture though say from Preview into Office a windows machine will not be able to display the image as it is linked to unavailable Quicktime libraries.

Other than that and it is something easily dealt with there are no real problems. Getting Outlook files to work in Entorage is a pain though. Migration is easier if you can enlist the help of an MS Exchange Server but what normal user has such a thing?

[cobra27]

Originally posted by Thraxes:


Problems occur when you import pictures (at least on Office v.X., don't have 2004): On the Mac when you insert a picture using the insert Picture dialog or drag and drop the file itself you will have no problems with the picture on a windows machine, if you copy / paste the picture though say from Preview into Office a windows machine will not be able to display the image as it is linked to unavailable Quicktime libraries.

Agree!! I have been burned by the above in Office 2004 as well.

I was happily copy-n-pasting graphics from web sites and PDF files into a Powerpoint. It was so convenient on a mac. BUT to my horrors, just before my presentation, I was forced to use a PC....and my Powerpoint file can't display any images! Lesson learned.

And the irony is that Compatibility Test tool in Office 2004 showed 100% compatibility.

[Xanadu]

I made the switch a couple of months ago and have had no problems what so ever- I have fallen completely in love with OS X. I have Office 2004 for Mac and have had no problems, everything seems to work for me just as well as in the PC versions (and its prettier!).
I have only just installed virtual PC today, and have installed Windows 2000 on it. It is a really awesome piece of software and everything seems to run reasonably fast (providing you have enough RAM!).
I would say that everything I have wanted to do on the Mac I have been able to find a piece of software to do it, and if there were ever any exceptions I would be quite happy to emulate using virtual PC.
(I have a 12" Powerbook 1.33Ghz 768Mb Ram)

[KenDallas]

Originally posted by crazeazn:
some quick information from a fellow switcher (hope it helps!):

1. access doesnt exist for the mac msft office suite (better alternatives for mac exist)
2. word, excel, and powerpoint has no problems moving back and forth whatsoever (i do it daily) using v.X and 2004, I'm currently a college student so all the professors use these formats as the norm. all my existing files have no trouble being read or editted.
3. outlook .pst files are a pain the ass to transfer to entourage. i had this problem as well since i migrated over, if i remember correctly i had to move the outlook emails to outlook express and had to migrate them over to entourage which turned them each into folders. it was a complicated process but i'm assuming theres a much faster way know since then....
4. i've never had any crashing with the office suites and jaguar (10.3.6)

1. I dont use Access at all, my main Office applications are Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook.... so the lack of Access on OSX will not bother me at all.
2. Yes, I plan to use the Powerbook for graduate school work. I would like to avoid complications resulting from the collaborative environment of students using PCs and emailing files back and forth.
3. Thanks for the heads up. I had heard similar concerns. I dont mind this too much as long as I know what I am getting and what will be entailed.
4. WONDERFUL - big relief !!

[KenDallas]

Originally posted by Thraxes:
I have to exchange files and data between the mac and PC world pretty often and have come to following conclusions: MS Office compatibility between platforms is almost 100%.

Problems occur when you import pictures (at least on Office v.X., don't have 2004): On the Mac when you insert a picture using the insert Picture dialog or drag and drop the file itself you will have no problems with the picture on a windows machine, if you copy / paste the picture though say from Preview into Office a windows machine will not be able to display the image as it is linked to unavailable Quicktime libraries.

Other than that and it is something easily dealt with there are no real problems. Getting Outlook files to work in Entorage is a pain though. Migration is easier if you can enlist the help of an MS Exchange Server but what normal user has such a thing?

I can handle that, I usually dont insert pictures using cut/paste anyway. So this should not be a problem. Have you noticed any issues inserting Excel tables into Word files and these files having a different look when opened on a PC?

[KenDallas]

Aside from software concerns I do have a few questions regarding the hardware.

I am currently using a Dell Latitude D600. After about 2 hours of use, the area where one would rest their left palm while typing gets extremely hot. Note that I am avoiding the use of the term "warm". It literally get HOT to a point that I am unable to use the computer past 2 hours. How is the powerbook in that regard. I am not too concerned about the heat on the bottom since I will always be using it on a desk.

I have also noticed other issues being mentioned on here in regards to white spots on the screen, latch issues, pitting on the casing itself. Have these problems been addressed by Apple?

I do want to thank everyone on there for taking the time to answer these questions. I very much appreciate the insight.

[wuzup101]

Powerbooks do get hot, but I'm guessing since you said you'll be using a 1.5ghz G4 in your first post (didn't read those in between) that you'll be using a 15 or 17 inch powerbook. My 15" gets hot on the bottom when at max load on highest performance for a while; however, I've never had it more than just warm on the palm rests. Never too hot to make it uncomfortable to use. Others might have other oppinions but I think the heat thing is fine, especially if you're using a desk I wouldn't worry about it! Right now my powerbook is within 5C of it's max temperature (that I usually experience) and the palm rests are barely warm at all.

[benwhanlee]

i work in an office with both macs and pc's and have never had any problem transferring documents between the two platforms. i use office v.X. word, excel files and powerpoint presentations are exchanged regularly. i don't know much about the entourage situation.

in regards to heat, i'd say the powerbooks do get quite warm, especially along the bottom. but i have never, ever had to quit using the computer because of this reason. my powerbook at work (a titanium 667) is on all day at work, and my aluminum powerbook is a little better than the titanium as far as heat goes...

[iPoder]

In Office 2004, there is a "compatibility report" feature in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which allows to check the document compatibilty with different versions, Mac or Windows.

My experience is that if you don't anything usual, there is no problem of exchanging documents between Windows- and Mac-version.

[Oneota]

Originally posted by cobra27:
Agree!! I have been burned by the above in Office 2004 as well.

I was happily copy-n-pasting graphics from web sites and PDF files into a Powerpoint. It was so convenient on a mac. BUT to my horrors, just before my presentation, I was forced to use a PC....and my Powerpoint file can't display any images! Lesson learned.

And the irony is that Compatibility Test tool in Office 2004 showed 100% compatibility.

Hm...did you try installing QuickTime on the PC? Just wondering if it would magically start working then?

[cobra27]

Originally posted by Oneota:
Hm...did you try installing QuickTime on the PC? Just wondering if it would magically start working then?

Ah, no, I didn't try to install QuickTime since it wasn't my PC.

I am more careful nowadays, and made sure that I save pictures or graphics into GIF/JPG files before inserting into Office documents.

[wuzup101]

I should also mention that I do cross platform work all the time and have never had a problem with any of the office products. Sometimes they can be a bit flakey... but then again office for windows was always a bit flakey too. I've never had a compatability problem which is good... as I go to a campus that predominantly uses windows PCs... so all my group members/class mates use windows... I use the student edition of office 2004 btw...

[KenDallas]

This is wonderful. I think all my questions have been answered. Now I need to wait till end of January to see if Apple will lower the price on their 15" Powerbooks... I will be placing my order at that point.

Thanks everyone !!!