[mtripathi13]

Dear Esteemed members,

I am a practicing CA and hence my work involves mostly the usage of MS-Office programmes viz. word, excel and PP and certain accounting software. Presently I use a ryzen 3 based windows laptop which suffices for the needs but is showing its age. The OS and MS-office are original and came preloaded with the laptop.

Now, I am contemplating moving to a MacBook air for better reliability and portability. While I know the accounting software will not be supported by mac os, my primary concern is with the word and excel files.

I have never used mac os (however I use an iPhone 13, so iOS is not an alien concept to me) and hence have few queries, if you may kindly reply:

1. In windows, we have hd/sdd drives where we can store files under folders. How does it work in mac.?

2.How can the existing files in my present laptop be transferred to the mac.? Where will they be stored?

3. I am aware that if I take an office 365 subscription, all files can be stored on cloud and accessed from anywhere. But I want them on my mac just as in windows. Is it possible?

4. Are there any other practical limitations on mac for a user such as me.?

Warm Regards
Manish

[phi]

Originally Posted by mtripathi13

1. In windows, we have hd/sdd drives where we can store files under folders. How does it work in mac.?

2.How can the existing files in my present laptop be transferred to the mac.? Where will they be stored?

3. I am aware that if I take an office 365 subscription, all files can be stored on cloud and accessed from anywhere. But I want them on my mac just as in windows. Is it possible?

4. Are there any other practical limitations on mac for a user such as me.?

I have been an avid Mac/iOS user for the last 15 years, and I use Windows for certain specific workflows. Here are my comments:

1. The way files are stored in drives on the Mac is very similar to how it is done on Windows. You do not have drive numbers like C:, D: etc., but there is tree-like folder structure that is very similar to what you see on Windows. The 'Finder' software is equivalent to 'Explorer'.

2. You can copy the data files over using a USB drive formatted as FAT32. The drive would be readable and writable on both Windows and Mac. You could also use a cloud service like OneDrive, but a disk drive would be easier. Apple also has a Migration Assistant that you can install on your Windows machine, and it will orchestrate transfer of files to the Mac over local network.

3. If you have an Office 365 subscription, you can definitely edit those files from Windows or Mac, either using a browser, or using a native client.

4. You are definitely going to have a much smoother experience if you use iPhone and Mac together - the ecosystem is fabulous and the software (Photos, Music, iCloud Drive etc.) works seamlessly across both devices. But if 80% of your usage is on Microsoft software, Windows would still be better for you. Also, you mention that your accounting software does not work with Mac - splitting work across Windows and Mac is probably not worth it. You could run Windows on Mac using Bootcamp or Parallels Desktop, but it is still going to be a pain. Windows has come a long way in terms of stability, and with the new LLM-integrated CoPilot features, is even ahead of Mac OS in information retrieval and organization. Other than the learning curve and the problems mentioned above, I do not see any major issue if you move to Mac. Macbook Air has fewer ports, so you might need more adapters than your current Windows machine, if you have to connect multiple external drives etc. - not usually a big issue unless you need such connectivity all the time.