[Michael S.]

I am in a class with a friend who has a MAC laptop. I have a DELL w/ WIN XP-PRO.
We are attending a class where the instructor gave each of us a free flash drive with all of his instructional material on it. I hope I'm posting in the right forum, if not please let me know.
The Flash contains mostly Power Point files -- all of those look like they're *.ppt filetypes.
There are a few *.doc files from MS Word -- many of those are key educational material.
The other key files are PDF, some *exe and *.dll.
I know she can read the PDFs, so that's not a problem. As for the *.exe and *.dll files, they are required for some interface tools for training. Haven't tried them yet, so no prob yet. She and all my classmates have the same flash drive.

Our concern is what can I do to help her see these *.ppt files and *doc, files. Do I have to convert them to something else? Can I do that "globally" or one file at a time? Does she have to install something new? We really don't know what to do about this and the presentor didn't have a clue either.

[DoubleHelix]

If she's in an educational program that will be providing materials in this way, she should get a computer and the necessary software to do the work. PPT files are Microsoft PowerPoint files, and DOC files are Microsoft Word files. I don't know if there are free viewers available for Macs or not, but that still only gets her so far.

I'm sure someone will come along with a solution to this one specific problem, but she has a much larger overall problem which is not having the right tools (hardware and software) for the classes she's taking.

[Yankee Rose]

Hello -

If she has iWork on her Mac, then she has Keynote, which is a Mac presentation program and will act as a viewer for any PowerPoint files, and Pages, which will do the same for Word documents. These programs will automatically open when she double-clicks the Word or PPT files on the flashdrive.

Otherwise, have her check out NeoOffice, which is a free full-featured set of office apps for OS X, developed for Mac users from the OpenOffice folks.

Hope that helps.

[Michael S.]

Originally Posted by Yankee Rose

Hello -

If she has iWork on her Mac, then she has Keynote, which is a Mac presentation program and will act as a viewer for any PowerPoint files, and Pages, which will do the same for Word documents. These programs will automatically open when she double-clicks the Word or PPT files on the flashdrive.

Otherwise, have her check out NeoOffice, which is a free full-featured set of office apps for OS X, developed for Mac users from the OpenOffice folks.

Hope that helps.

Thank you Yankee Rose!
I'll have to ask if she has iWork.
That sounds like a great solution!

[Pidgeon2113]

I think I'd be getting the girls phone number as obviously she's quite intelligent. The bottom line here is that PC software will run on a Mac re:- http://www.apple.com/getamac/faq/

but I bet a PC wont run Mac software !!

[Yankee Rose]

Yes, Windows-based software will run on a Mac, but only if the Windows OS is installed too.

[Michael S.]

That's good to know Rose!

[namenotfound]

Originally Posted by DoubleHelix

I don't know if there are free viewers available for Macs or not, but that still only gets her so far.

OpenOffice.org is an application which is FREE and can view both .doc and .ppt files
It is also cross-platform, there are versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X

Edit: I didn't see Rose's post before I posted this :-/ Yes, you can use NeoOffice or OpenOffice.org, I prefer OOo myself. Too many bugs I found in Neo...