Moving to Mac - concerns about Excel etc

[issa1]

I am on the verge of making the move from the PC world to Mac. I would like to move over completely, and not have to use MS products via Boot Camp etc. I am considering though using the Mac versions of MS programmes, but I have now heard after much questioning that there are in fact some issues in moving Excel files between the Mac version of Excel and the pure MS version, especially around macros. As I am a consultant and have to move seamlessly in and out of the PC world (especially via Excel and PowerPoint), this gives me pause. I would welcome some wise counsel on this before I take the leap.

Issa

 

[Hellhammer]

You don't have to worry about malware anymore because those are PC viruses etc which can't infect your Mac.

Consider iWork too because you can save files in Office format too and this is what I do. Download the trials of both, Office and iWork and then decide. Also OpenOffice is good and free

 

[issa1]

issa1

Thanks for that, Hellhammer. Will look into those suggestions, certainly. But if you are completely in the MS world in a Mac (eg, via Boot Camp), doesn't that still expose you to all the usual viruses inhabiting the PC world?

Issa

 

[stridemat]

If you are running windows in bootcamp then you can you still get viruses for windows as you are natively running windows, these should not affect you mac partition though.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thanks for that, Hellhammer. Will look into those suggestions, certainly. But if you are completely in the MS world in a Mac (eg, via Boot Camp), doesn't that still expose you to all the usual viruses inhabiting the PC world?

Issa

Yes but they can't infect your OS X partition, so basically you're safe.

Damn you beat me today stride!

 

[ravenvii]

If you rely on VBA, then yes that feature is missing from Office 2008. You can use Office 2004 (under Rosetta) for the meantime, but Office 2010 will bring back VBA.

They got rid of VBA because Microsoft was talking about dropping support in future versions of Office, so they figured it's not worth it to port VBA to Intel. Of course Microsoft backpedaled on that one, so yeah.

Other than that, there should be zero problems.

 

[lumberjack]

Seems as if some people don't know what macros in Excel are/do.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Right now if you are developing scripts for Excel, then you really need to be in Windows. I would suggest a virtual machine, Excel runs great in them and you can do so much once you start playing with them. Have a virtual image of the drive -- sure you can't boot into it, but you can back it up; copy it, keep a clean OS around and copy it for installing applications that may be questionable. etc.

As an engineer, we kept one golden copy of all the different version of Windows and then installed minimum tools to copies. This was so that we could customize our windows setups for each of our customers. If our customer was stuck in Windows XP SP2; we had an image for that. If they were in Vista, we had an image for that. If we needed to test a new application in all the different builds, just copy away... really, really handy.

 

[willie45]

The Mac is a great OS and I love mine, and it has all the advantages which some of the above posts have, rather tangentially, mentioned. But if you need to run macros on excel, it is IMHO not what you want just now. I switched to mac at home and work, and this excel thing is a PITA. I don't use it very often but when I do I use a colleague's pc.

You can run Windows Excel via Boot Camp, yes, but you say you don't want to do that and, I don't blame you. To my mind its an inefficient way to work. You're self employed and want to get on with your job, not mess around patching up makeshift solutions and having to bother with unnecessary complications. My wife has declined to switch for this reason. She works in finance and uses Excel a lot.

Why not wait until the new Excel comes out and see if this shorcoming is resolved? I am impatient to find out myself and I believe as has been mentioned above it has been addressed. Not sure when it is due, though it shouldn't be long.

W

 

[mcgrath383]

hi
use a lot of vba macros witin excel I need to use windows for it. Excel on Office 2008 (Mac) is a poor offering. I run Fusion 2 on a virtual machine to run excel and access on office. I have no problems with viruses as thats all i use the windows platform for.
I would advise you get at least 4gb of ram to run the virtual machine to run it seamlessly.
My only downside is running the virtual machine does eat into your battery life, otherwise make the switch.