[Ti] [OT] Microsoft Office : PC versus Mac (1st tests)

[Trevor J. Hutley]

At 10:38 -0700 15-4-2003, Paul Russell wrote:
>>So, tell your "almost ready to be a switcher" to go ahead as there 
>>is compatibility.  I think someone is feeding him a line of the 
>>really runny stuff to keep him in the camp of the "dark side" 
>>(ooow, ominous).
>
>Be careful - things can get ugly if, e.g. the PC user creates any 
>embedded drawing objects using Visio, for which is there is no 
>counterpart on the Mac.
>
>I fell foul of this very problem recently and now have to use a PC 
>to work on collaborative Word documents with my PC-using colleagues.

Paul - thanks to you and everyone else for their input on this issue. 
I ran some tests today with my friend, with mixed results.

Many of his Word documents have embedded Excel files in them, and Word Tables.
Once his files had been over email to my Ti-500 [see, it is on 
topic....  :-)  ]. opened and looked at by me in Office X, and back 
to his PC via email, he said that the format of the tables and Excel 
files was changed.

This was a new issue to me, as I never embed Excel files myself,
I always make a Copy-for-Print (Shift, Copy) of the Excel file or 
selection thereof, which I then paste in to Word as a graphic.
Then there is no associated 'format' to lose, nor can anyone change 
the numbers.....

I had not expected to find a problem with Tables in Word changing 
from Mac to PC.

So my conclusion is that there is a high level of compatibility, but 
it does not go well when there are embedded objects.  I assume that 
M$T might like to know about this and fix the problems.

The early conclusion from my friend is that the level of Office 
compatibility, for what he does, and what he has to handle, is not 
good.   Perhaps not good enough to Switch.  I assume that APPL might 
like to know about this barrier to Switching.

What do you think, Shawn ?

How should one go about getting this to the attention of those who 
will do something??

regards,  Trevor