Thread: Apple IMac

Originally Posted by Hay Ewe

We have one at home but only use it for charging my ipod and looking at pictures - it was a gift

I do a lot of work on excel for my job and there are real differences there, mostly short cuts it seems

I think this is because Microsoft developed excel and then sold it with some parts 'missing' to apple

on the whole, its good

Hay Ewe

G'day Hay,

I have been using some complex excel spreadsheets at home on my iMac too - files from work. I have the latest Mac Office, so maybe that is why, but I hadn't found any functionality differences - what specifically did you find missing in your Mac version?

Originally Posted by Scallops

G'day Hay,

I have been using some complex excel spreadsheets at home on my iMac too - files from work. I have the latest Mac Office, so maybe that is why, but I hadn't found any functionality differences - what specifically did you find missing in your Mac version?

I also have the latest Mac office and have found it more usefull with handy quick pop up short cuts and functunly better than my old PC's
Its amasing how all the little different thinks about the Mac I find make for a far better PC than the ussual PC set up I used to run.
I wish I had found Apple sooner, it took me to have an I Phone to trust the system.

The truth is that if you have a Windows user who uses a lot of functionality in Excel the Mac version begins to show its short comings. No VBA support is one of the deal breakers for many. But there's also lots of good things like the fabulous palette, why they don't use this on Windows amazes me.

Look... I'm reluctant to mention this... but if you **really** had to have exactly the same excel that you have a work because you wanted the one with VBA and all the vulnerabilities that go with that, then you could run excel in a windows VM. It's not hard to do, and works exceptionally well. With this type of system it is almost impossible to tell that an app is actually running on windows because it can run in translucent mode. Excel or any other PC app appears just like a mac app and you stay within OS X.

It just shows that it's very difficult to find something from the pc world that can't be accommodated if it's a deal breaker. You'd still be better off than running a pc because when windows rolls itself up in a ball you just delete the vm and reinstall while the mac world hums along unaffected.

I posted a reply to the difficulties that I was having using Excel on a mac, but it ended up on another thread

anyway, I foudn that it missed various short cuts, like f4 to ut teh 4 into a formula so it always referenced that cell. I also had a stack of macros (V that are attached to buttons.

I just found it a bit harder to use, I was goign to do some work at home but didnt happen and I didnt use it that much. as I mentioned ealier, it was a gift and so not sure what version of excel it has and I didnt use it enough to work my way through them.

When I do use it, its great, no complaints

I shall look at the attachement posted above - thanks for that

Hay Ewe

Yes, Office 2008 did not include VB support. Previous versions allowed you to play VB scripts inside the file.

Bad mistake on MS's part. Nothing to do with Apple.

Alan