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My dad wants a MB, Questions.....

J

John01021988

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 11, 2007
280
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Hello, after talking with my dad for hours and hours about how good apple is and everything, I think I convinced him in switching from Windows to OS X. Now he keeps telling me that he wants a MB to do work stuff, like using office, excel, internet, mail, etc... Now here is the question. Will a macbook be very useful for him? I do not want to disappoint my dad for having him spending over 1000 bucks for a computer that he'll see as an "entertainment" laptop. Also I am worried about compatibility problems. My dad works with a lot of office documents (most of them Word) and I don't want him to have headaches because he switched to mac.... Thank you guys.

BTW, Ill be getting a MBP for college and hopefully there will be an upgrade before July. I don't care about learning from OS X, I know Windoze causes a lot trouble for everything. Hell! I have reformatted my windows pc's like 10 times, losing valuable info and pictures as well....
 
No worries. Office for Mac can read and write documents that are 100% compatible with Windows. Okay, maybe not 100%, but pretty close. :)
Seriously though, it shouldn't be too much of a headache.

A MacBook is a good choice, since he doesn't sound like a guy who's gonna do a lot of gaming. :D

As for your MacBook Pro, only you can decide wether to wait of not.
 
John01021988 said:
My dad works with a lot of office documents (most of them Word) and I don't want him to have headaches because he switched to mac....
Click to expand...
The Mac version of Office and the Windows version of office are pretty much the same. Generally one version of Office can open the other's files.

There are differences. Some differences can be function/key combinations to execute commands. In Excel, for example, to set a cell to Absolute Reference you would press F4 in Windows Excel or Command-T in Mac Excel.

Others can be menu differences. Some can be the file types accepted such as video in a PowerPoint presentation.

One thing to consider, if your dad relies on books on how to use Microsoft Office most books are written for the Windows version which is different than the Mac version and can be confusing at times.

Personally, I think that the Mac version of Office is nicer and easier to use. My experience has been that most folks easily adapt to the Mac version of Office without much training.
 
sushi said:
The Mac version of Office and the Windows version of office are pretty much the same. Generally one version of Office can open the other's files.

There are differences. Some differences can be function/key combinations to execute commands. In Excel, for example, to set a cell to Absolute Reference you would press F4 in Windows Excel or Command-T in Mac Excel.

Others can be menu differences. Some can be the file types accepted such as video in a PowerPoint presentation.

One thing to consider, if your dad relies on books on how to use Microsoft Office most books are written for the Windows version which is different than the Mac version and can be confusing at times.

Personally, I think that the Mac version of Office is nicer and easier to use. My experience has been that most folks easily adapt to the Mac version of Office without much training.
Click to expand...


Nope, he doesn't use those fancy books and stuff. Also how about wireless compatibility, like for example, hotel wireless system. He travels a lot and now a major concern, durability. How durable is the MB? Also do MB's get the weird uneven display issue?
 
John01021988 said:
Nope, he doesn't use those fancy books and stuff. Also how about wireless compatibility, like for example, hotel wireless system. He travels a lot and now a major concern, durability. How durable is the MB? Also do MB's get the weird uneven display issue?
Click to expand...
If your father just uses basic functionality with Word, Excel and PowerPoint then he should have no problems between the two versions of Office (Windows and Mac).

I have a PB15, so someone else will need to chime in for your specific MB questions.

As for wireless, I never had a problem with open networks which is what one usually encounters at hotels and Internet Cafes'.
 
John01021988 said:
Nope, he doesn't use those fancy books and stuff. Also how about wireless compatibility, like for example, hotel wireless system. He travels a lot and now a major concern, durability. How durable is the MB? Also do MB's get the weird uneven display issue?
Click to expand...

802.11b/g/n (commonly just called the blanket term "wifi" :D ) is a standard and therefore should work with anything with the same standards support. read: yes, it should work with the hotel's wireless network as long as he can get a signal.

I find the MacBooks to be more durable as they don't dent like the MBPs do. I take mine to classes all the time, it bounces around in my bag often...just get a good bag and you should be set (and on a sidenote, there are LOTS of macbook bag threads floating around here, so take a peek...).

Office 2008 for Mac will support OOXML and will be universal, so if your dad needs office, best to wait a couple more months or so.
 
My gf does a lot of telecommuting for her job. Her office is PC's day in and day out, so when she's there that's what she uses.
When she works from home, our Macs can handle pretty much anything from work that she needs to access, whether it's a file that's been emailed or something she needs to access on work servers.

As a previous poster mentioned, the main difference will be getting used to different menu locations, shortcut keys, using the :apple: command rather than <ctrl>, that sort of thing.
 
When I switched in Aug 06'; since I'm a student I thought I was going to use Office 2004 a bunch and I did, until I started using iWork.

I can't say enough great things about Pages and Keynote. Both programs play nice with Word and Powerpoint, but the ease of use is hands down in Apple's favor.

Granted I don't use Excel all that much, but when I have to I have too.

Have your Dad try the trial of iWork and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Just a word to the wise, if your Dad ends up with a stock MacBook....max out the RAM.

Office 2004 is a major RAM hog with the extra RAM it's going to run a lot smoother.
 
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