Is there life on the Mac? Office: Part 2
This article is a translation of the article by John Rizzo “iWork and Office: Can they work together?” The article seemed to me very interesting and useful, many pitfalls are described here when working with office documents, so I decided to translate it. My comments will be in italics.
Apple says iWork is compatible with Microsoft Office, but what does it really mean?
Indeed, you can move documents between iWork and Office, but after moving, they may look and function differently from how they were in the parent program. Macworld has already compared the characteristics of Word and Pages , Excel and Numbers and PowerPoint and Keynote , but (as some readers indicated in the comments to the article), we didn’t cover the compatibility of files and programs that arise when trying to move documents from one package to another. This is what I would like to do here.
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When you try to open an Office file in iWork using File: Open (File: Open), iWork doesn't actually open them. Instead, it imports them and creates a new translated file in Pages, Numbers or Keynote format, so the original Word, Excel or PowerPoint file remains intact. You can make sure of this when trying to save a file: the iWork application prompts you to save the document in its own default format, rather than in the Office format.
IWork applications can import files in the new Microsoft Open XML formats that use the .docx, .xlsx, and .ptpx extensions. These are the default formats in Office 2008 for Macs and in Office 2007 for Windows. Office 2004 can only create old ( they are standard ) Microsoft formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt), but iWork can import them too.
If you have both Office and iWork installed on your Mac, and you want Pages to open the Word file by double-clicking, select the file and select “Get information” in the file menu ( or click Cmd + I). Expand the "Open with" area and select Pages from the drop-down menu.
When importing an Office file, iWork often displays a warning window that says which aspects of the original document were removed or changed. When it does import items, they will often look different in iWork. The more complex the Office file, the greater the likelihood of loss of something during the transition.
One main feature of Office that iWork does not support is Visual Basic Application (VBA) macros from Office 2004 for Macs and Office 2007 for Windows. When you import a file containing a macro, all macros from the document are lost.
You can recreate most of the Office macro functionality using AppleScript. The hitch is that you have to create a script, mainly manually. There is no way to automatically translate macros into Apple scripts. This means that you are unlucky if you need to share a macro-laden file with Office users.
Do not feel abandoned. Office 2008 for Mac users have the same problem: Office 2008 for Mac does not support macros. This is the only reason why some Mac users do not upgrade to Office 2004. It seems that Microsoft noticed and announced that it will return the macros back to the next major version of Office, but this is unlikely to happen very soon.
Many Word'a properties are well conveyed in Pages '08. For example, the change tracking property in Word is well imported into Pages, keeping the names of the editors and the dates of the changes. Styles created in Word are moved, as well as most of the objects of the page layout (layout), for example, tables, footnotes, graphics. Some objects will be in a different place than in the original document, but they will be imported.
In cases where Pages does not support any of the Word properties, Pages will attempt to convert the object to something else. Pages will translate Word Art from Word 2008 into a text field without any bends in the text and without contours or shadows. Pages does not support text fields for forms, but imports text entered into Word forms.
Even if the original file does not contain unusual Word functions, the resulting Pages document will not always be an exact copy of the original Word document. A typical problem is that the text is spreading from one page to another. This can happen if your Mac does not have a font that is used in the original document, when Pages replaces it with another font that is slightly larger in physical size.
It is annoying that you may face the problem of text overflow, even if you have the same font, font size and line spacing in Word and Pages. This is because Word and Pages define line spacing a little differently, so the single line spacing in Pages is slightly wider than in Word, which leads to text flowing to another page.
To fix this, define leading in Word and Pages in pixels, not lines. A value of 16 pixels is usually one line for most fonts. The values in pixels in Word and Pages are the same in size, so that the imported document will look more like the original.
Functions will be a major problem when importing Excel workbooks. Numbers'08 has more than 170 functions, which is almost half of what Excel 2008 has. Most of the missing functions are statistical and digital functions, and Numbers does not have Excel database functions or about 35 engineering functions. If the Excel workbook has a function that Numbers does not support, Numbers imports only the calculated numeric value of the cell. Numbers will mark these cells with a blue triangle, by clicking on which you can see the Excel function that has been deleted.
Numbers also does not support the Excel property to password protect hidden cells and rows. Numbers will translate them as not hidden, but empty cells. The only way to get information from these cells is to ask the creator of the Excel document to remove the password protection.
From personal experience: Numbers is an excellent spyware program. The fact is that if in the Excel document any sheets were not deleted, but hidden, Numbers perfectly opens and displays them when importing, although not one Excel either on the Mac or on Windows sees them. Remember this. I have already sent such documents. Accidentally opening them in Numbers, I learned a lot of new and interesting.
In addition, currency formats do not always match. Values in $ and Euro will be converted to Numbers as USD and EUR. The reverse is also true. Those. A beautiful currency format for import will have to be re-set.
Slide presentations slyly move from Mac to PowerPoint for Windows. Therefore, it’s not surprising that you lose some of the PowerPoint slideshow when you import into Keynote. Slideshow compatibility issues are not constant, although they can seriously prevent you from watching the presentation.
Multimedia, slide transitions and built-in animation constitute the main area of compatibility issues. As for embedded video and audio, QuickTime is most suitable for importing into Keynote to play. Unfortunately, the video and audio used in the built-in animation can interfere with the automatic transition between slides to such an extent that you can’t even manually move to the next slide. The solution is to remove the automatic transitions, or remove the multimedia objects embedded in the slide.
Keynote does very well with other types of transitions and built-in effects, including a transition in the form of 3D screen rotation, built-in effects with images, and bouncing or swirling text.
Mac and Windows users will not be able to open files in the native iWork format in Office. If you want office users to see the contents of your documents, you will need to create a new file by exporting your iWork file to office format. To do this, for example, in Pages, select File: Export, select Word. Click Next and name the exported file.
Remember that iWork applications will only export to old Microsoft formats (.doc, .xls, and .ppt); they cannot export to the new Open XML file formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx) that are used in Office 2008 for Macs and Office 2007 for Windows, but these new versions of Office can read old .doc, formats. xls, and .ppt to which iWork can export.
However, if your colleagues or clients insist on getting Open XML files, your choices are limited. You can paste plain text into the TextEdit version for Leopard, which can export to .docx. Unfortunately, there are currently no third party utilities that can create Open XML files.
If your users can accept read-only files, exporting iWork documents to PDF will keep the formatting the same as in your original. Keynote has more read-only options that do a better job. To export editable files to Office, you'll have to take care of how to create your iWork document.
Both Pages and Word support calculations in tables, but these two are not fully compatible. On the built-in tables in the documents Pages will have to work hard so that they work in Word.
If you look at the table in the exported Word document, the table functionality will be removed (that is, inaccessible); changing the numbers in the cells will not result in recalculation of the value in the cells with formulas. Pages only partially converts complex tables: the formulas still remain in their place in Word files, but the values in the cells are converted to fixed text, and there is no numeric formatting. To return to a functioning table, you must remove the fixed text format and apply numeric formatting using the Formula item in the Table menu in Word. This may be too hard for the Word user. If you want a working table, it may be better to use Numbers with text cells.
There are also formatting problems, which lead to the fact that the document exported to Word differs from the original Pages file. Regarding tables: it may turn out that the table no longer fits on the same page. A small investigation will show that the export function has added a paragraph spacing after the text in each line, which has led to a lengthening of the table.
A file that uses a lot of graphics can be problematic, because graphics may not be in the same place in the Word file. When using graphics, it is better to avoid using alpha channels (levels of transparency), since they usually don't look good after exporting to Word.
Numbers is a different beast than Excel. While Excel is a huge network of cells, Numbers is more of a page layout program that allows you to add tables, text fields and images to your layout. In Excel, text fields and graphics go on top of the grid.
This means that you may need to reorganize your Numbers file so that it is exported to something that looks good in Excel.
When you export a sheet of Numbers with several tables, each of them becomes a separate Excel sheet. If you want Excel users to see your page layout with a single table, do not use multiple tables per sheet. Instead, arrange all your tables into a single Numbers network.
Checkboxes in Numbers is a nice interactive feature, but Excel users won't see them. Checkboxes are converted to the words "true" or "false" ("true" or "incorrect") in files exported to Excel.
There are also some features in Numbers that Excel will completely ignore. For example, table names in Numbers will not be displayed in Excel. If you want to name your table, paste the text into the cell. On the other hand, do not insert graphics into cells. The graphics inside the cells will not be transferred to Excel.
Exporting PowerPoint presentations is a bigger problem than importing them to Keynote.
Slide Comments are the biggest compatibility issue when exporting from Keynote. PowerPoint 2008 will not open a Keynote file exported in .ppt format if the file has slides comments. When a user attempts to open a file, PowerPoint 2008 will display an error message stating that "an error occurred and you need to exit the program." To fix this, you need to go back to Keynote, delete the comments on the slides and export the presentation to PowerPoint again.
This issue does not occur with PowerPoint 2004 or PowerPoint 2007 for Windows. If you don’t know which version of PowerPoint your target users have, make sure you delete the comments on the slides before exporting.
You should also avoid using graphics with alpha channels. PowerPoint does not support this feature, so images behind the transparent part may appear in front of your graphics in the alpha channel.
Keynote does not save as many slide transitions and built-in animation effects when exporting to PowerPoint compared to importing into this program. It replaces many of the built-in animation effects with simple dissolve and removes many transitions between slides.
If you are not interested in simplifying your presentation, Keynote provides you with other export alternatives that will keep your presentation beautiful. The best option is to export your presentation to a QuickTime movie, which will preserve the built-in animation effects and transitions, sounds and movie clips. You will need to make sure that Windows users have QuickTime for Windows, which can be downloaded for free from the Apple website.
If you think that the transitions between slides in the exported QuickTime file are not smooth, try exporting the file again, making some changes to the settings. In the export dialog, select QuickTime. In the Formats pop-up menu, select Custom, then click the Settings button. Now uncheck the “Frame Reordering” option and select “Faster encode (Single-pass)”.
If you are not sure that Windows users will have a QuickTime player, try using the Keynote export option to flash. Flash supports some text transitions, for example, building in a line with each click. When switching between slides, dissolve is the only effect that is supported when exporting to a flash; it does not support the transition effect in the form of a rotating block. Flash can also include sound files. Most Windows users should have a flash player installed. On the Mac, a flash presentation will be played in Safari by double clicking.
For simpler presentations, when you are not worried about slide transitions or the built-in animation effects, PDF may be appropriate. This format will not show transitions between slides, or play audio or video, but it is universal. Almost every PC user on the planet can open a PDF, regardless of what presentation software or operating systems they have.
Keynote also allows exporting to earlier versions of Keynote, but you should not use the Export command to do this. To save your presentation in Keynote '05 or '06 format, use the Save As command and select the appropriate version of Keynote.
In general, the simpler the document, the greater the compatibility between iWork and Office. Complicated documents do not tolerate movement between Office and iWork very well. they will lose something with each translation. In particular, moving from PowerPoint to Keynote and back can lead to the loss of many effects and the general deterioration of the presentation. If you need multiple editing rounds with Office users, you may have to bite the bullet and install a copy of Office.
In order to read Office files and share your documents with Office users, iWork can be quite adequate. What degree of compatibility will be sufficient for you depends on you.
While I work according to this scheme: all documents for personal use are created in iWork'08. The most important (or those that need to be shared with someone) are exported to Microsoft Office formats. If you need something to print or show someone, the documents are exported to PDF.
Regarding presentations, the conversation is separate. Even making a presentation in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and opening it in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows too, you may find that your wonderful design has gone, spread, goes beyond the bounds of the slide. What can we say about such different programs written for different platforms like PowerPoint and Keynote? Therefore, the easiest way to not suffer with the presentation is to show it from your computer. If this is not possible, then you can remove all the effects of transitions between slides and animations and save the slides as pictures by selecting the File> Send to> iPhoto menu. Next, in iPhoto, beautiful screenshots of all slides appear, collected in a separate album. Now you can open a new presentation, where on each slide to place a screenshot from iPhoto. Opens for sure and everywhere. This is due to the fact that different versions of programs behave differently.
Apple says iWork is compatible with Microsoft Office, but what does it really mean?
Indeed, you can move documents between iWork and Office, but after moving, they may look and function differently from how they were in the parent program. Macworld has already compared the characteristics of Word and Pages , Excel and Numbers and PowerPoint and Keynote , but (as some readers indicated in the comments to the article), we didn’t cover the compatibility of files and programs that arise when trying to move documents from one package to another. This is what I would like to do here.
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Office Files in iWork
When you try to open an Office file in iWork using File: Open (File: Open), iWork doesn't actually open them. Instead, it imports them and creates a new translated file in Pages, Numbers or Keynote format, so the original Word, Excel or PowerPoint file remains intact. You can make sure of this when trying to save a file: the iWork application prompts you to save the document in its own default format, rather than in the Office format.
IWork applications can import files in the new Microsoft Open XML formats that use the .docx, .xlsx, and .ptpx extensions. These are the default formats in Office 2008 for Macs and in Office 2007 for Windows. Office 2004 can only create old ( they are standard ) Microsoft formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt), but iWork can import them too.
If you have both Office and iWork installed on your Mac, and you want Pages to open the Word file by double-clicking, select the file and select “Get information” in the file menu ( or click Cmd + I). Expand the "Open with" area and select Pages from the drop-down menu.
When importing an Office file, iWork often displays a warning window that says which aspects of the original document were removed or changed. When it does import items, they will often look different in iWork. The more complex the Office file, the greater the likelihood of loss of something during the transition.
One main feature of Office that iWork does not support is Visual Basic Application (VBA) macros from Office 2004 for Macs and Office 2007 for Windows. When you import a file containing a macro, all macros from the document are lost.
You can recreate most of the Office macro functionality using AppleScript. The hitch is that you have to create a script, mainly manually. There is no way to automatically translate macros into Apple scripts. This means that you are unlucky if you need to share a macro-laden file with Office users.
Do not feel abandoned. Office 2008 for Mac users have the same problem: Office 2008 for Mac does not support macros. This is the only reason why some Mac users do not upgrade to Office 2004. It seems that Microsoft noticed and announced that it will return the macros back to the next major version of Office, but this is unlikely to happen very soon.
Word → Pages
Many Word'a properties are well conveyed in Pages '08. For example, the change tracking property in Word is well imported into Pages, keeping the names of the editors and the dates of the changes. Styles created in Word are moved, as well as most of the objects of the page layout (layout), for example, tables, footnotes, graphics. Some objects will be in a different place than in the original document, but they will be imported.
In cases where Pages does not support any of the Word properties, Pages will attempt to convert the object to something else. Pages will translate Word Art from Word 2008 into a text field without any bends in the text and without contours or shadows. Pages does not support text fields for forms, but imports text entered into Word forms.
Even if the original file does not contain unusual Word functions, the resulting Pages document will not always be an exact copy of the original Word document. A typical problem is that the text is spreading from one page to another. This can happen if your Mac does not have a font that is used in the original document, when Pages replaces it with another font that is slightly larger in physical size.
It is annoying that you may face the problem of text overflow, even if you have the same font, font size and line spacing in Word and Pages. This is because Word and Pages define line spacing a little differently, so the single line spacing in Pages is slightly wider than in Word, which leads to text flowing to another page.
To fix this, define leading in Word and Pages in pixels, not lines. A value of 16 pixels is usually one line for most fonts. The values in pixels in Word and Pages are the same in size, so that the imported document will look more like the original.
Excel → Numbers
Functions will be a major problem when importing Excel workbooks. Numbers'08 has more than 170 functions, which is almost half of what Excel 2008 has. Most of the missing functions are statistical and digital functions, and Numbers does not have Excel database functions or about 35 engineering functions. If the Excel workbook has a function that Numbers does not support, Numbers imports only the calculated numeric value of the cell. Numbers will mark these cells with a blue triangle, by clicking on which you can see the Excel function that has been deleted.
Numbers also does not support the Excel property to password protect hidden cells and rows. Numbers will translate them as not hidden, but empty cells. The only way to get information from these cells is to ask the creator of the Excel document to remove the password protection.
From personal experience: Numbers is an excellent spyware program. The fact is that if in the Excel document any sheets were not deleted, but hidden, Numbers perfectly opens and displays them when importing, although not one Excel either on the Mac or on Windows sees them. Remember this. I have already sent such documents. Accidentally opening them in Numbers, I learned a lot of new and interesting.
In addition, currency formats do not always match. Values in $ and Euro will be converted to Numbers as USD and EUR. The reverse is also true. Those. A beautiful currency format for import will have to be re-set.
PowerPoint → Keynote
Slide presentations slyly move from Mac to PowerPoint for Windows. Therefore, it’s not surprising that you lose some of the PowerPoint slideshow when you import into Keynote. Slideshow compatibility issues are not constant, although they can seriously prevent you from watching the presentation.
Multimedia, slide transitions and built-in animation constitute the main area of compatibility issues. As for embedded video and audio, QuickTime is most suitable for importing into Keynote to play. Unfortunately, the video and audio used in the built-in animation can interfere with the automatic transition between slides to such an extent that you can’t even manually move to the next slide. The solution is to remove the automatic transitions, or remove the multimedia objects embedded in the slide.
Keynote does very well with other types of transitions and built-in effects, including a transition in the form of 3D screen rotation, built-in effects with images, and bouncing or swirling text.
iWork → Office
Mac and Windows users will not be able to open files in the native iWork format in Office. If you want office users to see the contents of your documents, you will need to create a new file by exporting your iWork file to office format. To do this, for example, in Pages, select File: Export, select Word. Click Next and name the exported file.
Remember that iWork applications will only export to old Microsoft formats (.doc, .xls, and .ppt); they cannot export to the new Open XML file formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx) that are used in Office 2008 for Macs and Office 2007 for Windows, but these new versions of Office can read old .doc, formats. xls, and .ppt to which iWork can export.
However, if your colleagues or clients insist on getting Open XML files, your choices are limited. You can paste plain text into the TextEdit version for Leopard, which can export to .docx. Unfortunately, there are currently no third party utilities that can create Open XML files.
If your users can accept read-only files, exporting iWork documents to PDF will keep the formatting the same as in your original. Keynote has more read-only options that do a better job. To export editable files to Office, you'll have to take care of how to create your iWork document.
Pages → Word
Both Pages and Word support calculations in tables, but these two are not fully compatible. On the built-in tables in the documents Pages will have to work hard so that they work in Word.
If you look at the table in the exported Word document, the table functionality will be removed (that is, inaccessible); changing the numbers in the cells will not result in recalculation of the value in the cells with formulas. Pages only partially converts complex tables: the formulas still remain in their place in Word files, but the values in the cells are converted to fixed text, and there is no numeric formatting. To return to a functioning table, you must remove the fixed text format and apply numeric formatting using the Formula item in the Table menu in Word. This may be too hard for the Word user. If you want a working table, it may be better to use Numbers with text cells.
There are also formatting problems, which lead to the fact that the document exported to Word differs from the original Pages file. Regarding tables: it may turn out that the table no longer fits on the same page. A small investigation will show that the export function has added a paragraph spacing after the text in each line, which has led to a lengthening of the table.
A file that uses a lot of graphics can be problematic, because graphics may not be in the same place in the Word file. When using graphics, it is better to avoid using alpha channels (levels of transparency), since they usually don't look good after exporting to Word.
Numbers → Excel
Numbers is a different beast than Excel. While Excel is a huge network of cells, Numbers is more of a page layout program that allows you to add tables, text fields and images to your layout. In Excel, text fields and graphics go on top of the grid.
This means that you may need to reorganize your Numbers file so that it is exported to something that looks good in Excel.
When you export a sheet of Numbers with several tables, each of them becomes a separate Excel sheet. If you want Excel users to see your page layout with a single table, do not use multiple tables per sheet. Instead, arrange all your tables into a single Numbers network.
Checkboxes in Numbers is a nice interactive feature, but Excel users won't see them. Checkboxes are converted to the words "true" or "false" ("true" or "incorrect") in files exported to Excel.
There are also some features in Numbers that Excel will completely ignore. For example, table names in Numbers will not be displayed in Excel. If you want to name your table, paste the text into the cell. On the other hand, do not insert graphics into cells. The graphics inside the cells will not be transferred to Excel.
Keynote → PowerPoint
Exporting PowerPoint presentations is a bigger problem than importing them to Keynote.
Slide Comments are the biggest compatibility issue when exporting from Keynote. PowerPoint 2008 will not open a Keynote file exported in .ppt format if the file has slides comments. When a user attempts to open a file, PowerPoint 2008 will display an error message stating that "an error occurred and you need to exit the program." To fix this, you need to go back to Keynote, delete the comments on the slides and export the presentation to PowerPoint again.
This issue does not occur with PowerPoint 2004 or PowerPoint 2007 for Windows. If you don’t know which version of PowerPoint your target users have, make sure you delete the comments on the slides before exporting.
You should also avoid using graphics with alpha channels. PowerPoint does not support this feature, so images behind the transparent part may appear in front of your graphics in the alpha channel.
Keynote does not save as many slide transitions and built-in animation effects when exporting to PowerPoint compared to importing into this program. It replaces many of the built-in animation effects with simple dissolve and removes many transitions between slides.
If you are not interested in simplifying your presentation, Keynote provides you with other export alternatives that will keep your presentation beautiful. The best option is to export your presentation to a QuickTime movie, which will preserve the built-in animation effects and transitions, sounds and movie clips. You will need to make sure that Windows users have QuickTime for Windows, which can be downloaded for free from the Apple website.
If you think that the transitions between slides in the exported QuickTime file are not smooth, try exporting the file again, making some changes to the settings. In the export dialog, select QuickTime. In the Formats pop-up menu, select Custom, then click the Settings button. Now uncheck the “Frame Reordering” option and select “Faster encode (Single-pass)”.
If you are not sure that Windows users will have a QuickTime player, try using the Keynote export option to flash. Flash supports some text transitions, for example, building in a line with each click. When switching between slides, dissolve is the only effect that is supported when exporting to a flash; it does not support the transition effect in the form of a rotating block. Flash can also include sound files. Most Windows users should have a flash player installed. On the Mac, a flash presentation will be played in Safari by double clicking.
For simpler presentations, when you are not worried about slide transitions or the built-in animation effects, PDF may be appropriate. This format will not show transitions between slides, or play audio or video, but it is universal. Almost every PC user on the planet can open a PDF, regardless of what presentation software or operating systems they have.
Keynote also allows exporting to earlier versions of Keynote, but you should not use the Export command to do this. To save your presentation in Keynote '05 or '06 format, use the Save As command and select the appropriate version of Keynote.
Results
In general, the simpler the document, the greater the compatibility between iWork and Office. Complicated documents do not tolerate movement between Office and iWork very well. they will lose something with each translation. In particular, moving from PowerPoint to Keynote and back can lead to the loss of many effects and the general deterioration of the presentation. If you need multiple editing rounds with Office users, you may have to bite the bullet and install a copy of Office.
In order to read Office files and share your documents with Office users, iWork can be quite adequate. What degree of compatibility will be sufficient for you depends on you.
While I work according to this scheme: all documents for personal use are created in iWork'08. The most important (or those that need to be shared with someone) are exported to Microsoft Office formats. If you need something to print or show someone, the documents are exported to PDF.
Regarding presentations, the conversation is separate. Even making a presentation in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and opening it in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows too, you may find that your wonderful design has gone, spread, goes beyond the bounds of the slide. What can we say about such different programs written for different platforms like PowerPoint and Keynote? Therefore, the easiest way to not suffer with the presentation is to show it from your computer. If this is not possible, then you can remove all the effects of transitions between slides and animations and save the slides as pictures by selecting the File> Send to> iPhoto menu. Next, in iPhoto, beautiful screenshots of all slides appear, collected in a separate album. Now you can open a new presentation, where on each slide to place a screenshot from iPhoto. Opens for sure and everywhere. This is due to the fact that different versions of programs behave differently.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/31616/
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