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• Wednesday, November 7, 2007 11:07 AM

  I'm not a microsoft fanboy, anonymous!

  I'm a woman!

  And you're wrong--it is simply not true that any file made on a Mac runs fine on a PC.

  Of course the *method* you use for file transfer doesn't make any difference at all. Go ahead and transfer the file via jump drive if you want, that is not going to magically reformat the file so it runs fine in the PC version of the software.

  The problem is that the application programs are not equivalent, so the files generated aren't fully compatible.

  Microsoft Powerpoint files made on the Mac (which has only a very lame version of Powerpoint, BTW) just don't run right on a PC. There will be X's all over the place anywhere you put your graphics on your slides. Including where Excel graphs are embedded, so Excel obvs has some problems transferring too.

  I use lots of graphs and microscopy images in my presentations and lectures since I'm a professor and a scientist, so this is a big problem. Yes, I could pdf it all and make a slideshow of the pdfs and then it would run on both software versions without garbling the graphics. But then I'd lose the animations and movies, which are kind of the point in many of my data slides. (Ironic, given the Mac's legendary graphics capabilities, but what can you do?)

  I suppose if you are just making bulleted list powerpoint slides with just a couple of cliparts here and there, you might be able to transfer powerpoint files back and forth between PCs and Macs without having any problems. But I would never give a lecture that simple/boring.

  And you're also wrong about my network at my institution. It runs on custom-designed software, and it only grudgingly accepts a Mac and then it only lets you use a limited amount of the network's servers and software once you're in.

  And I didn't even mention this before---but much of the scientific instrument data analysis software that I use at work is only written for the PC.

  So having a Mac really does = a big barrier in my work environment. I have some hopes that Mac's new Windows software might help with this basic incompatibility option, but I'm not holding my breath. Fortunately, the computers that I know will work well now (PC's) are much cheaper than Macs anyway.

  —mad cartoonist Read mad cartoonist's other letters
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