I have just get a new client who up until now has done everything on Spreadsheets on her Mac, she is going to email me the spreadsheets for me to finish off putting her stuff on them as she hasn't got the time to do it. After April 6th I am going to put her on QB for the new financail yr. My question is will I be able to open here spreadsheets from her MAC and then use them on my Laptop. I run Vista. I am hoping one of you will be able to help, as computers are not my forte!!!!
it's not the operating system but the actual spreadsheet package that matters here.
There are two options. Either (a) your client is able to save the data from her program in an Excel format or (b) your version of Excel is able to open her files in Excel format.
Worst case scenario you get a file in CSV (comma seperated) format in which case you need to know what the client was using as a seperator. Semi colons are the norm.
I'm guessing that your not going to have a problem getting the data as Excel can open quite a few different file types. The issue may come with formatting including the occassional split or concatenated field.
Worth noting, if the client is using Lotus then since Excel 2007 Lotus file formats are no longer supported. If you have Excel 2000 / 2003 though you should be ok opening those as well.
All in all, easiest option is if your client is able to save the file in Excel (preferably .xls rather than .xlsx) format and then just email you with it.
Good luck. If you have issues post a follow up on here and we'll try and figure a work around.
All the best,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
At one of my clients I have a Mac which runs (via parallels) Windows. The MSOffice programs are Mac ones but I can open them either from the server on Mac or on my parallels in Windows. As Shaun said just make sure the client saves the spreadsheet as a .xls and you should have no problem with opening it in Windows.
have you tried openoffice? http://www.openoffice.org/
its free (open source) and should work across mac and PC I think. It is basically a far cheaper alternative to MS Office software and it will also open and save in MS office format so you may be able to open and existing excel sheet in openoffice and then save in an alternative format suitable for MAC and vice versa.
Usually the problems with compatibility for Excel on Mac and on Windows systems are hit with more complex spreadsheets that utilise VBA. The VBA between the two are not completely compatible, and not compatible with OpenOffice either though I understand it may be improving.
on that note, VBA often isn't compatible between versions of Excel let alone other operating systems!
Until last quarter of last year I was having to keep Excel 4, 5, 2000 and 2007 on my PCs to support various Macro's that I had built in the past. As nobody has paid me for the last three years for maintaining the older Macro's I'm assuming that they are (finally) defunct so thankfully now it's just 2000 and 2007.
Strangely though I still think that Excel 4 was the best version.... Or maybe that's just the one I first got used to after suffering Lotus 1-2-3 so it was my personal benchmark for everything that followed.
Actually, on a linked point here. Have you noticed that Windows 7 doesn't support Office 2003! Dll's used by Office 2003 are missing which I can only assume was used by MS as a kill switch to ensure that we all gritted our teeth, accepted that darn ribbon that still has me seeing red amd moved to the later versions of their products.
On the bright side, I find Pivot tables are an absolute joy with 2007 where I personally always found them pretty hard going in previous versions.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
