Q: Completely new to iMac ... !!!

stevenreid wrote:

 

My first issue is that relating to work ... Previously I used to do a lot of work at home on MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel ... Useful because I was using a PC at work and at home ... If I buy Office:Mac will I be able to work on documents, presentations etc at home (on my new iMac) and take them to work ??? ... Can they be interchamgeable for editting, revising etc !!!

 

 

Stevo

Congratulations on getting your iMac (or at least ordering it).

Yes, MS Office for Mac can open up any version of any MS document, and save it in any form you want (for example an older version of Word for those who haven't upgraded Office in 10 years). Yes, I know those people.

I have only run into issues with Powerpoint, but that was a few years ago.

You can also consider Apple's iWork, which is the same suite, can save as Microsoft, and are much better designed (IMHO), though this is just my opinion.

So, you can email files from work, or if you have a dropbox (corporate or private), you can move files back and forth. Double click on any Microsoft document on your mac and it will open up in the appropriate Mac version of the program.

stevenreid wrote:

 

 

I'll likely have some questons about mp3 transfers to (non-Apple) music players, but I'll get round to that !!!

 

Also, very quickly ... For safety I presently back-up my iTunes library to an external hard drive ... Can I just load this onto my iMac when I get it ???

 

Any heads-up much appreciated ... I am looking forward to (hopefully) hassle-free computing ... Main reason for my defection from Windows ... I installed Windows 8 and it's a total nightmare !!! ...

 

Cheers for any info/advice ...

 

Stevo

To answer your other questions:

1. MP3 transfers are easy. Almost as easy as opening Microsoft word files. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
2. Remember, the new iMac does not have a DVD/CD drive. I never use one, so I don't care. But some people do. You can order the Super Drive for about $79 that matches your iMac beautifully. Or buy any USB 3 drive anywhere.
3. Buy the AppleCare for the iMac. It extends the warranty to three years, and it'll pay for itself if a HDD fails or the screen has problems. You cannot change the HDD yourself, without violating the warranty, and it takes superior electronics skills to do it anyways.
4. Get an external HDD for Time Machine, which is the auto-backup program for OSX. It works beautifully.. You need a drive about 2X larger than your internal drive.

I also strongly recommend you consider forgetting about anything and everything Microsoft, and use Apple's iWork suite instead. These programs read and save MS Office formatted documents.

In addition to their software's increasing bloat and resource - taxing inefficiencies, Microsoft's licensing requirements are burdensome and inconvenient. There are several other alternatives such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice; they are free and donation-supported (respectively).

Use Time Machine or "clone" software to back up your entire system, not just iTunes music.

These may be useful to you:

Switching from Windows to Mac:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2514?viewlocale=en_US

and

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2518?viewlocale=en_US